Dolly Parton’s family has shared plans for a small, private funeral after the music legend died peacefully in Nashville aged 80, while the song she wanted to be played has also been revealed
Dolly Parton revealed she wanted an old country-gospel song played at her funeral rather than one of her own songs.
Country music icon Dolly’s heartbreaking death at the age of 80 was announced by her family on Tuesday, 25 August, following a “brief battle with cancer“, and it was announced that at the star’s request a small, private funeral service would be held for immediate family.
In 2014, Dolly told Entertainment Weekly she wanted the song If We Never Meet Again (This Side Of Heaven), written by Albert E Brumley in 1945 and later sung by Johnny Cash, to be sung at the service. She told the US outlet: “I’m sure they’ll be playing I Will Always Love You when I die, just like they did with Whitney Houston. When they picked her coffin up and started in on that song, I started to cry, and I thought, ‘oh my lord’, that’s when it hit me that she was really gone.
“But there’s a song called If We Never Meet Again, it’s an old country-gospel church song that talks about, ‘if we never meet again this side of heaven, I will meet you on that beautiful shore, where the charming roses bloom forever and where separations come no more’.
“That was my daddy’s favourite. We did sing it at his funeral, and I would like it to be sung at mine.”
Following Dolly’s death, she has been remembered as “a giant of an artist – unique and irreplaceable” in emotional tributes. Fans and friends from around the world were encouraged to pay tribute to the 9 To 5 and Jolene singer on social media tagging @dollyparton.
In lieu of flowers, Dolly’s family has asked for donations to be made to her Imagination Library at imaginationlibrary.com. The Imagination Library, which sends free books to children from birth to age five, has gifted more than 270 million books since it was founded by Dolly in 1995, inspired by her father, who could not read or write.
In 2024, one in seven children aged under five in the US received a book in the post each month from the programme. The Imagination Library was launched in the UK in 2007 on the back of the success of the project in the US.
As well as a being a music icon and a pioneering philanthropist, Dolly was also a savvy businesswoman with an empire that included a theme park, aptly named Dollywood.
She was also a supporter of several charities for black and LGBT+ communities, as well as the Barbara Davis Centre for Childhood Diabetes, Save the Music Foundation and the Boot Campaign. In 2020, she donated one million dollars (£733,000) to coronavirus research at Vanderbilt University, which helped fund Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine.
Dolly was born in a single-room cabin in Locust Ridge, Tennessee, in 1946, the fourth of 12 children. She began her musical journey at the age of six, singing in the local church where her grandfather was the pastor.
By the age of 13, she had reached the pinnacle of country music success: an appearance at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. Over the course of her career, which spanned more than 60 years, Dolly sold more than 100 million records worldwide and wrote more than 3,000 songs, including hits Coat Of Many Colours and Joshua.
