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Dolly Parton’s story has been told through countless songs, performances and interviews, but Martha Ackmann’s Ain’t Nobody’s Fool: The Life and Times of Dolly Parton offers a more sustained look at her life. Following Parton’s death at 80, the biography, published on Dec. 30 2025, revisits her early years in Tennessee, her emergence as a country music star and the career that established her as a lasting cultural icon.
That journey began early. As Ackmann details in the biography, Parton was just 13 when she first performed at the Grand Ole Opry, the famed Nashville institution that has long been a cornerstone of country music. It was an early glimpse of the determination that would carry her through a career spanning decades. By the time Parton released “Jolene” in 1973, she had already established herself as a formidable country artist, but the song would become one of the defining recordings of her career and help propel her into the mainstream.
Ain't Nobody's Fool: The Life and Times of Dolly Parton
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A Dolly Parton biography.
The book details Parton’s transition from being an impoverished child in the Smoky Mountains to her eventual rise to international stardom as a singer, songwriter, actress, businesswoman and philanthropist. Parton’s music career is just as iconic as her big hair and even bigger personality, with Billboard charting hits like “9 To 5,” “Heartbreaker” and her famed track “I Will Always Love You,” covered by Whitney Houston in 1992 for The Bodyguard film’s soundtrack. The song also caught the eye of a certain “King of Rock & Roll.”
“Well, actually, Elvis (Presley) loved that song. That was when he and Priscilla (Presley) were having their problems.” Parton explained in an interview in 2025 with AXS TV. “She (Priscilla) told me that Elvis sang that to her on the day of their divorce,” Parton continued. The track peaked at 47 on Billboard’s Hot 100 charts and remained on the charts for a total of 10 weeks. The song was released in 1974 as a single, part of Parton’s wildly popular Jolene album as a farewell to her mentor Porter Wagoner.
“Colonel Tom Parker (Elvis’ manager) calls me the day before and says, ‘now you do know that Elvis is recording songs and you do know that Elvis doesn’t record anything that he doesn’t publish or at least get half the publishing. He would have rights to the publishing of the song. I said I can’t do that,” Parton explained in her recent AXS TV interview. “I was so disappointed. I was going to have to tell my friends Elvis didn’t record it.” Parton attributes her business-savvy thinking in situations like this one to her father, who was a hardworking farmer and construction worker.
All this, and more, can be found in Ackmann’s new book, available on Amazon, Audible and at Barnes & Noble now.