Dolly Parton's Tennessee Mountain Home — Sevierville

Dolly Parton was born on 19 January 1946 in a one-room cabin in Sevierville, Tennesse — the fourth of twelve children born to Robert Lee Parton and Avie Lee Owens in the mountain community of Locust Ridge in the Great Smoky Mountains. The area around Sevierville and the Sevier County mountains is the landscape that Parton has returned to throughout her career — in her music, in her philanthropic activity, and in the Dollywood theme park she established near Pigeon Forge in 1986. 'Tennessee Mountain Home' is one of her most celebrated songs, a direct evocation of the family cabin where she grew up.

Parton's childhood in Sevier County poverty — she famously recalls wearing a coat of many colours sewn by her mother from rags, and being laughed at by classmates — is the foundation of her most emotionally resonant songwriting. Her ability to make art from the material of her own life, without sentimentality or self-pity, is one of the defining qualities of her work. She left Sevierville the day after her high school graduation in 1964, reportedly arriving in Nashville the following morning. Her rise from mountain poverty to extraordinary wealth and fame is one of the great American stories of the twentieth century.

The area around Sevierville and Pigeon Forge is now a major tourism destination centred on Dollywood. A bronze statue of Parton stands outside the Sevier County Courthouse in Sevierville. The cabin site in Locust Ridge, while in a more remote area, is visited by fans. Dollywood itself — a significant theme park with strong musical heritage programming — is the primary Parton pilgrimage destination in the region.