Tributes pour in after country music legend Dolly Parton dies

Dolly Parton pictured in 2022. Photograph: NBC/Katherine Bomboy/Getty Images

Songwriter of I Will Always Love You, Jolene and 9 to 5 invested millions in child literacy, Covid-19 vaccine development and other causes

By Ben Beaumont-Thomas

Dolly Parton, one of the greatest singer-songwriters in country music, who was also much cherished for her philanthropy, has died aged 80.

Her death was announced by nephew Brian Seaver on Instagram. “I have imagined the heaviness of this moment but haven’t truly felt it until now,” he said. “It is an honour, an honour that is mixed with absolute pride and great sadness.”

Parton’s team confirmed the singer died Tuesday “after bravely facing a brief battle with cancer.”

“Dolly departed her Earthly life today at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center surrounded by loved ones,” the statement continued.

So gifted that she wrote two of the 20th century’s greatest songs – Jolene and I Will Always Love You – in a single day, Parton’s songwriting was characterised by its vivid storytelling, emotional acuity and melodic strength, all sung with strident clarity. From an eventual catalogue of hundreds of songs, she scored a record 25 US country No 1 singles and 47 albums in the country Top 10. She crossed over into the pop charts with 9 to 5, a US No 1 hit in 1980; balanced her music career with acclaimed acting, twice earning Golden Globe nominations for her roles; and donated more than 300m books to children through her Imagination Library literacy project.

This was all done with considerable panache, rhinestoned glamour and towering hairdos, with her immortal assertion regarding her appearance – “it takes a lot of money to look this cheap” – the most quoted example of Parton’s ready wit.

Parton was born in poverty in a one-room cabin in Tennessee, the fourth child to a mother who would have 12 children by the age of 35, and a father who was a farmer and construction worker. One of her best-loved songs, Coat of Many Colours, was about her mother creating patchwork clothes; Parton’s first guitar was cobbled together from a mandolin with bass guitar strings. Her first proper guitar was given to her aged eight by her uncle, and she went from singing in church to appearing on local television aged 10, to cutting her first record aged 13. That year, she appeared at the Grand Ole Opry, the concert hall in Nashville at the center of country music, and her performance was introduced by Johnny Cash. “I’ve always believed things would go well, and I dreamed that they would even before I was in high school,” she later said. “I always wanted to be a star. It just seemed natural to me.”

After graduating high school in 1964, she moved to Nashville and started out as a songwriter rather than performer. The following year, she was signed as an artist and initially moulded as a pop singer, without success; after she was allowed to switch to country, she scored back-to-back hits and released her debut album Hello, I’m Dolly. In 1966, she married Carl Dean – who died in 2025, with the couple renewing their vows in 2016 to mark 50 years together.

Beginning in 1967, a duet partnership with country singer and TV personality Porter Wagoner helped her star continue to ascend, and she had her first country No 1 in 1971 with the song Joshua.

Jolene, her unforgettably raw and desperate plea to a rival lover, was released in 1973 and became her first UK success, reaching No 7. I Will Always Love You, written to Wagoner as a farewell after their creative partnership ended, was a country No 1 in 1974 and again via a re-recorded version in 1982, and would go on to be a huge pop success when revived by Whitney Houston for the soundtrack of The Bodyguard in 1992: it is still the bestselling single of all time by a woman, with an estimated 20m sales.

In the mid 1970s, Parton broadened her sound, embracing pop-rock arrangements on songs such as 1977’s Light of a Clear Blue Morning – its accompanying album New Harvest … First Gathering was her first entry in the pop album chart. Later that year, its follow-up, Here You Come Again, reached the Top 20 and was her first million-selling LP, powered in part by its hit title track, which also won Parton the first of her 10 Grammy awards.

The year 1980 was a peak in her success, with three back-to-back country No 1s, including 9 to 5, taken from the film of the same name, which Parton starred in alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, earning her an Oscar nomination for best original song. Parton would later write songs for a stage musical version of 9 to 5, in 2008.

Another classic single came in 1983 – Islands in the Stream, a duet with Kenny Rogers, which topped the US pop charts – and a Christmas album with Rogers in 1984 went two times platinum. There were more notable film roles in the 1980s, too, opposite Burt Reynolds in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Sylvester Stallone in Rhinestone, and an all-star female ensemble in Steel Magnolias.

Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris in 1987. Photograph: Paul Harris/Getty Images

A landmark Parton album came in 1987 with Trio, an exquisitely harmonised, springwater-clear collaboration with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, earning Parton her only nomination for album of the year at the Grammys. Another all-star trio recording came in 1993, with Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn on the album Honky-Tonk Angels, followed by a reunion with Harris and Ronstadt for Trio II in 1999, featuring a Grammy-winning cover of Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush.

The turn of the century brought a trilogy of acclaimed bluegrass albums, and Parton would release 10 more LPs, the most recent being Rockstar in 2023. She was courted by a younger generation of stars, appearing with country artists such as Brad Paisley as well as pop singers such as Kesha, and her goddaughter Miley Cyrus. There were fewer acting roles, but she lent her voice to animated film Gnomeo and Juliet in 2011 and the following year appeared alongside Queen Latifah and more in the musical film Joyful Noise.

Alongside her music and acting, Parton was an astute businesswoman and philanthropist. She founded the film and TV production company Sandollar, with former manager Sandy Gallin, which went on to produce hits such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Father of the Bride film series. In 1986, she took a stake in the Silver Dollar City theme park in Tennessee and renamed it Dollywood, doubling its size over the next two decades, and a Dollywood-branded spa, cabin complex, theatre-restaurant concept and waterpark have since been opened.

Dolly Parton in Joyful Noise. Photograph: Van Redin/Publicity image from film company

The Dollywood Foundation, funded through these business ventures and creative projects, was created in 1988, initially awarding college scholarships and running a program to help children complete high school in her native Sevier county, Tennessee. In 1995, Parton began her Imagination Library project, which sent an age-appropriate book to every child in the county every month until they were five. “My father could not read and write, and I saw how crippling that could be,” she explained. It expanded nationwide in 2000, internationally in 2006, and 40m books are now distributed each year across the US, Canada, Australia, the UK and Ireland.

In 2022, Jeff Bezos donated $100m (£83m) to the foundation. That year, Parton explained that as well as improving child literacy, “it’s the fact they get recognised. They get this little book with their little name on it in the mail, and they feel special. They start taking pride in themselves, and they know that somebody out there is thinking of [them].”

Parton also set up a reserve in 2003 to help preserve the bald eagle; contributed $500,000 to the opening of a Sevier county hospital in 2006; coordinated relief efforts for people affected by the Smoky mountain wildfires of 2016; and contributed to an HIV/Aids charity album. She supported Black Lives Matter and transgender rights, opposing a North Carolina “bathroom bill” that restricted transgender people’s access to toilets (Parton was also nominated for an Oscar for her song in trans drama Transamerica, entitled Travelin’ Thru).

She made a number of donations to Vanderbilt University’s medical center in Nashville, Tennessee, where her niece was treated for leukemia. The most high-profile of these was in 2020, when she donated $1m for research into Covid-19, which formed the basis for the eventual Moderna vaccine.

In May 2026, Parton cancelled her Las Vegas residency over health issues. A Broadway musical is also set to open later this year after a run in Nashville.

 This article was amended on 26 August 2026. The Imagination Library has donated more than 300m books to children, and distributes 40m books a year. An earlier version said these figures were “more than 150m” and “nearly 25m” respectively.

First published at The Guardian, August 26, 2026

Moby Dick: The 19th-Century novel that challenged our fear of the 'monstrous' whale

By Elizabeth Sulis Kim

(Credit: Getty Images)

Now 175 years old, US author Herman Melville's classic is the ultimate tale of man v whale – but in fact, it questions why humans have been so terrified of these great sea creatures.

Across time and place, we have seen animals as friends, collaborators, pests, gods, idols and demons – and our view of them is constantly shifting.

In my new book, The Book of Beasts: Reclaiming Animal Wisdom, I trace the emotional story of our relationships with animals, and reflect on how storytelling has impacted how we treat them. In many ways, our shared futures look bleak, with wildlife populations declining by 73% between 1973 and 2000. Yet the relationship between humans and one creature in particular – the whale – should give us hope. In ancient and medieval times whales were conflated with sea monsters and the devil, but now they're an animal many of us long to see and save. 

And one seminal moment in the whale's reappraisal came 175 years ago with the publication of Herman Melville's Moby Dick: an epic, great American tale of man vs whale, whose tragic hero Captain Ahab's fixation on the titular white sperm whale leads to his death. The story is narrated by Ishmael, a sailor who joins Ahab's whaling mission looking for money and adventure. On board, however, Ahab announces the real reason for the trip: vengeance. He wants to chase down and kill Moby Dick, who bit off his leg on a previous voyage. 

But Melville did not share Ahab's animosity for the sea creature. Instead his story invites readers to question where human fears about "monstrous" animals come from – and whether those fears say more about us than them.

An illustration of the sinking of the The Essex whaling ship by a sperm whale – the incident which inspired Mody Dick
(Credit: Getty Images)

The real story that inspired Moby Dick

By the time Melville published Moby Dick, in the mid-19th Century, the hunting of whales, or whaling, had expanded into a major commercial industry. Whalemen set out on dangerous voyages to kill whales and harvest their blubber for "train oil", used to lubricate the machines of the industrial revolution and light the "fat lamps" of swelling cities.

The US east coastal town of Nantucket, Massachusetts, where Moby Dick begins, became the whaling capital and earned its nickname, "The City That Lit the World". The whalers learnt about whales through direct observation, while scientists had specimens to dissect. Taxonomy divided whales and other animals into neat categories based on anatomical differences and evolutionary history. Finally, it seemed, humans had illuminated even the shadowy underwater realm.

Yet some whales still challenged these ideas about the predictability of the natural world. On 20 November 1820, a sperm whale struck down The Essex whaling ship in the southern Pacific Ocean. Twenty men escaped on three boats, endured around three months at sea, succumbing to starvation and dehydration, and then, as two written survivor accounts tell it, eventually resorting to cannibalism. Among the survivors was senior crew member Owen Chase, whose account of what happened inspired Moby Dick.

Certainly the real-life tragedy – and the great fictional story it inspired – placed the very unlikely possibility of a whale attack in the collective imagination like never before. The odds of a whale striking a ship are close to zero – there are only around five historical cases. Whales avoid confrontation, and incidents such as the Essex sinking are now understood as accidental collisions, or self-defence. But our fears, as Melville himself wanted to show, aren't always rational.

How Melville views the 'ancient monster' – and its human foes 

As Ishamel narrates it, Captain Ahab's irrationality is boundless – he seeks retribution against the whale who caused him such a great injury. His crew, he declares, must pursue Moby Dick around the world "till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out".  The suggestion is that Ahab and the other whalemen can kill whales until the cows come home, but if a whale fights back, their fury will be incommensurate.

Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab in the 1956 Hollywood film adaptation of Moby Dick (Credit: Getty Images)

In reality, perhaps the terror man felt towards the whale was more about his repressed fears about his own vulnerability. Owen Chase wrote this of the whale who struck the Essex, "I turned around, and saw him… coming down apparently with twice his ordinary speed, and to me at that moment, it appeared with tenfold fury and vengeance in his aspect."

Ishmael is less certain than Ahab what the whale represents, pivoting between fear and reverence. But he openly conflates the whale with the sea monster of the Bible known as the Leviathan: "The great Leviathan is that one creature in the world which God has created for the play of his own," he says. By the late Middle Ages, the Leviathan was explicitly identified as the whale by Christian figures like 13th-Century friar and philosopher Thomas Aquinas.

Melville showed us the ancient monster, but also called this age-old framing into question, suggesting how the whale had become a receptacle for people's wider feelings about the unknown. For Ahab, the white whale is an embodiment of chaos, indifference and cruelty. "All visible objects… are but as pasteboard masks," declares Ahab.

He sees the physicality of the whale as a facade, concealing behind it a far greater, malevolent force. Ahab longs to destroy the "inscrutable thing" beyond Moby Dick's mask. This inscrutable thing he is referring to is what he presumes is an evil power in nature – call it the devil, God or fate.

Binary categorisations, such as good and evil, whether applied to animals or fellow humans, are a tempting escape from ambiguity – but these are something Melville and Moby Dick reject

Ishmael sees Ahab as loading the whale with "the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down". For millennia we have associated the act of humans slaying beasts with heroism, and these narratives are hard to shake – even if the more courageous path is co-existing with them.

Binary categorisations, such as good and evil, whether applied to animals or fellow humans, are a tempting escape from ambiguity – but these are something Melville and Moby Dick reject. Even among those whose job it was to see whales as a product at the time, whales were never one thing. 

Some whalemen referred to whales as monsters; others grew sympathy or curiosity through direct observation. "I can not conceive any thing more strikingly awful than the butchery of this tremendous leviathan of the deep," wrote whaler J Ross Browne in his 1846 book Etchings of a Whaling Cruise.

The whale's makeover in modern times

Two generations on from whaling's peak, whales now mean very different things to people. Reading Moby Dick, many contemporary readers root for the whale, not the whaler. In the last century, a changing economy has seen commercial whaling pared back (though it has not ended completely – despite international bans, Norway, Iceland and Japan still whale for profit). And the mixture of fear and economic exploitation that characterised our relationship with whales in Melville's time has by and large been replaced by admiration and a desire to save them.

A sperm whale in the Atlantic Ocean off the Canary Islands – today they are cherished animals (Credit: Getty Images)

Indeed, humans now embrace the idea of whales fighting back against human cruelty: even if we still don’t know what they’re doing, our stories about it have changed. In the last few years, increased incidents of orcas, aka killer whales, ramming boats off the coast of Spain and Portugal have come to be known on social media as an "orca uprising", even though science does not yet have much evidence that their actions are intentionally hostile.

A significant point on the whale's metamorphosis in the eyes of humans came in 1967, when American biologist Roger Payne recorded whale song, and humans were moved by it. Since then, a growing body of research shows whales are capable of complex communication, once believed unique to humans. Might whales also be able to reciprocate kindness?

In my book, I relay reports of Vietnamese fishermen saved by whales which have informed their folk religion, and spoke with Nan Hauser, a whale scientist who was saved by a humpback whale. Research from marine ecologist Robert Pitman has observed interspecies altruism among humpback whales, who save marine animals like seals from orcas. For all that is unknown, these accounts and studies validate the sense that whales have an inner world which might rival our own.

Chase Coffin, from Nantucket, is a direct descendent of Owen Chase, and his family are proud of their whaling ancestry. Their feelings about whales, however, have shifted. "My family now donates every year to Save the Whales," he says. "I've been vegetarian most of my life."

Melville showed us how we make our monsters from the fear and guilt we repress within ourselves. Looking beyond our own projections, we might finally glimpse these animals' real depths.

First published at BBC, August 21, 2026

Double Dutch brothers bring four hands to Canberra

Lucas (left) and Arthur Jussen, coming to Canberra. Photo provided.

By Helen Musa

There may be plenty of jokes about the “double Dutch” brothers, but there is nothing remotely funny about the extraordinary musical talents of Lucas and Arthur Jussen, one of the world’s leading piano duos.

The famed Dutch brothers, who recently made their BBC Proms debut at London’s Royal Albert Hall after appearing as soloists with the Berlin Philharmonic, are now bringing their acclaimed four hand partnership to Canberra for their Australian debut tour.

At the piano, the brothers are said to breathe as one, listening and responding to each other instinctively, shaping phrases together and creating a sound both thrilling and intimate.

Born in 1993 and 1996, Lucas and Arthur Jussen have become among the most sought after piano duos of their generation, earning praise for their energetic, almost symbiotic playing, refinement of sound and gripping interpretations.

Their international reputation has seen them perform as soloists with some of the world’s most prestigious orchestras, making the brothers leading ambassadors for classical music from the Netherlands.

They have recorded exclusively for Deutsche Grammophon since 2010, with their debut album of Beethoven works achieving platinum status and winning the Edison Klassiek Audience Award. Conductor Michael Schønwandt summed up their partnership after directing them in concert with the observation that it was “like driving a pair of BMWs”.

Their Canberra program at Snow Concert Hall will showcase the full range of their musicianship, beginning with Mozart, Schubert and Mendelssohn.

After interval, the program takes a dramatic turn with Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, performed in the composer’s own version for piano four hands.

One of the most revolutionary works in music, The Rite of Spring is already renowned for its raw energy, but the four hand arrangement, its elemental force is concentrated into a single piano and two performers, demanding extraordinary precision, virtuosity and complete trust between the players.

The Jussen Brothers perform at Snow Concert Hall on Friday, August 28.

First published at Canberra City News, August 20, 2026

Tale of ‘gutsy’ migrants set to strike an emotional chord

The former Bonegilla migrant camp near Albury-Wodonga

Thousands of post-war migrants passed through the Bonegilla migrant camp near Albury-Wodonga. So Bonegilla – The Migrant’s Journey is likely to strike a particularly resonant chord with ACT audiences, writes HELEN MUSA.

For many Canberra families, the story of Bonegilla is also part of their own story.

Thousands of post-war migrants passed through the migrant camp near Albury-Wodonga, with many going on to work on the Snowy Mountains Scheme before eventually putting down roots in Canberra.

So Bonegilla – The Migrant’s Journey, a multimedia work coming to Belco Arts on August 28, is likely to strike a particularly resonant chord with ACT audiences.

Creator Simon Reich describes the migrants at the heart of the work as “gutsy pioneers who left everything behind and travelled to a country they knew nothing about”.

The production combines filmed interviews with post-war migrants from across Europe with their photographs, home movies and personal documents.

Two large screens dominate the stage, sometimes creating a screen-within-a-screen, while Reich performs his own original musical score on piano with Ukrainian-born violinist, composer and improvisational specialist Alex Burkoy.

The stage itself is decorated with possessions migrants brought with them on the voyage or used during their early years in Australia, while a sea of LED candles helps create the emotional atmosphere.

For Reich, the project is also deeply personal. His German-born father, Manfred, lived through the final days of World War II in Berlin and was only nine when the war began. The family lived just 50 metres from Hitler’s bunker and waited in terror for the Russians to arrive.

Manfred later spent time at Bonegilla and began working in nearby Wangaratta. Reich says his father’s wartime experiences left him with undiagnosed PTSD, something he came to understand more fully while creating the work.

“I’ve had many descendants come up to me in tears after the show, realising what their parents had gone through,” he says.

Reich himself grew up with the uncomfortable burden of a German surname. At school he was called “the Nazi”, while one classmate famously announced at roll call, “Here comes the Fourth Reich.”

His research has taken him back to Bonegilla itself, where museum staff corrected a common mispronunciation of the name. The original name, he says, is the Koori word “Bone-gilla”, rather than the often-heard “Bona-villa”.

The production unfolds in six chapters, beginning with the journey to Australia and first impressions, moving through camp life and the transition into Australian society, and ending with “Home Sweet Home”.

The darker experiences are not ignored. Migrants speak about war, displacement and racism, but Reich is careful to balance the tragedy with humour, warmth and the often surprising details of starting a new life.

The final chapter looks at what happened when the migrants left the camps and began building their lives in Australia. Many became homeowners within five or six years, either buying or building their own houses, despite having arrived with very little.

“Many of them had left school by 14,” Reich says. “They took up trades and learnt on the job. They were a real inspiration.”

And Australia, he points out, was not their first choice. Many had hoped to go to America, with Australia often an accidental destination.

Yet for many, it worked out. Among their descendants is federal politician Tanya Plibersek, whose Slovenian-born parents came to Australia after the war, passed through Bonegilla and whose father went on to work on the Snowy Mountains Scheme.

Reich says the contemporary relevance of the work is becoming increasingly obvious as questions about multiculturalism and Australia’s identity continue to surface.

He is also finding that the production is bringing families together. Some are booking multiple tickets so children and grandchildren can hear stories their elders have never shared.

“It’s also healing families,” Reich says, particularly because the early part of the show allows migrants to talk openly about their wartime experiences and what motivated them to leave Europe.

The production can be scaled for larger venues, where Reich uses a string quartet, but at the intimate Belco Arts Theatre the music will be created by Reich and Burkoy. The score moves between nostalgia and darker passages, with the musicians sometimes improvising in response to the images on screen.

It is clearly a multimedia show with many moving parts, but Reich says audiences often respond viscerally, even wanting to take photographs in the theatre after the performance.

“Everything works together,” he says. “It’s so topical.”

Bonegilla – The Migrant’s Journey, Belco Arts Theatre, August 28 and 30.

First published at Canberra City News, August 17, 2026

NFSA puts YouTube creators in the history books

High energy Canberra educator Eddie Woo.

By Helen Musa

The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia has partnered with YouTube to recognise 10 of Australia’s most influential creators on the platform, it was announced at Parliament House in Canberra on Monday.

In what they believe is a world first for a national audiovisual archive, the creators will become part of the NFSA’s national audiovisual collection through the inaugural NFSA Creator Capsule.

Together, the 10 creators have a global subscriber base of 84 million and more than 36 billion combined channel views.

The archive will collect 300 videos from the creators, along with oral histories and contextual material about their work and creative processes. It will also preserve associated interactions such as likes, views and comments, providing a snapshot of how audiences have engaged with the material.

The creators will be recognised at an event at Parliament House in Canberra on Monday, August 17.

The archive has in fact been collecting individual YouTube videos since 2013, but the Creator Capsule signals a greater commitment to preserving the audiovisual culture of the 21st century.

“Audiovisual storytelling is the dominant form through which we now express, celebrate and negotiate identity,” NFSA chief curator Meagan Loader said, while Google Australia and New Zealand vice-president and managing director Mel Silva said the partnership would give the creators a permanent place in Australia’s cultural record.

Among those being inducted are Canberra educator Eddie Woo, recognised for his high-energy mathematics lessons that have made classroom learning accessible to millions of people around the world, multi-instrumentalist Tash Sultana and YouTube pioneer Natalie Tran.

Independent animation studio GLITCH, which has achieved international success with series like Murder Drones and The Amazing Digital Circus, joins Outback Boys, whose unscripted filming on Country provides an insight into Yolŋu bushcraft and Superwog in the Creator Capsule.

With 91 per cent of Australian adults using an online service to watch video content each week, the archive says preserving this material is essential to understanding contemporary Australian culture.

Highlights from the Creator Capsule will be featured on the NFSA website.

First published at Canberra City News, August 17, 2026

Tony's Desert Island Discs 2026

Many of you, my friends, would be familiar with the BBC radio program Desert Island Discs, yes?

The premise being that you imagine yourself cast away on a desert island and choose eight audio recordings (including specific performances) you would like to take with you.

Here are mine:

Stevie Wonder: Songs in the Key of Life

Steve Miller Band: A Journey from Eden

Gershwin: Porgy and Bess - Cleo Laine and Ray Charles

We Get Requests - Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown, Ed Thigpen

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 - Ferenc Fricsay conducting the BPO

Vaughan Williams: Tallis Fantasia - Sir John Barbirolli conducting The Sinfonia of London

Vivaldi: Gloria in D - Kings College Choir Cambridge

Schubert: Lieder on texts of Goethe - Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

What would be yours?

Tony's Favourite 50 Sitcoms

Tony’s favourite 50 Sitcoms

Bewitched

I Dream of Jeannie

My Favourite Martian

F Troop

The Beverly Hillbillies

Gilligan’s Island

The Ghost and Mrs Muir

Hazel

The Life of Riley

Nanny and the Professor

My Three Sons

The Bob Newhart Show

Hogan’s Heroes

McHale’s Navy

The Dick van Dyke Show

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Julia

Get Smart

Cheers

I Love Lucy

Mash

Schitt’s Creek

My Name’s McGooley, What’s Yours?

Bless This House

Some Mother’s Do ‘Ave ‘Em

Man About the House

Robin’s Nest

George and Mildred

Sykes

Fawlty Towers

Please Sir

As Time Goes By

On the Buses

Hancock’s Half Hour

And Mother Makes Three

And Mother Makes Five

Till Death Us Do Part

Dad’s Army

Mr Bean

It ‘Aint Half Hot Mum

Gimme Gimme Gimme

The Vicar of Dibley

Steptoe and Son

Are You Being Served?

Porridge

Open All Hours

The Good Life

Yes Minister

Yes Prime Minister

My Family