Dolly Parton Young During Her Appalachia Childhood
Before she was the Queen of Country Music and a superstar,Dolly Parton was living a humble life in Appalachia. Born in Locust Ridge, Tennessee in 1946, Parton lived in a two-room log cabin with no running water or electricity and was the fourth born of 12 children. The singer’s life in Appalachia was one of poverty, inspiring many of her songs including “Coat of Many Colors” and “Appalachian Memories.”
By age 10, Parton was singing professionally, appearing on Knoxville Radio and later releasing her first single, “Puppy Love,” at age 13 in 1959. That same year, the singer made her Grand Ole Opry debut and immediately after her high school graduation in 1964, she relocated to Nashville to follow her dreams. By 1967, she began gaining traction and the rest is history.
While you likely recognize the Country Queen with her glamorous look, including bright blonde hairdos and bright lipsticks, Parton’s early days were a bit different. Get a glimpse into the early Appalachian life of Dolly Parton with these rare photos of the singer young.
Young Dolly Parton
Before the blonde wigs and the glamorous makeup, Dolly Parton was just a young girl growing up in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. The above photo features the country star in 1955 at about age nine before she began professionally singing. Parton is sporting a short haircut and no makeup, sharply contrasting from her usual look.
Parton has often shared her experience of growing up in poverty and how she would create her own makeup out of natural products. She said, “You don’t need to buy expensive cosmetics; almost anything will do if you know how to apply it. Until I was a teenager, I used red pokeberries for lipstick and a burnt matchstick for eyeliner. I used honeysuckle for perfume. We were raised in the Pentecostal Church of God and they believed that wearing makeup was sinful. I had to sneak around and make myself look all pretty but then wash it off before they caught me.”
She added, “I would also paint my eyebrows on. I always had a beauty mark, but I would also make it darker. So a burnt match was good. You’ve got to spit on it after you’ve burnt it. I’ve got to tell you, what I used for powder was flour.”
Dolly Parton’s beehive
In the 1960s, Parton began sporting her signature beehive hairdo which became a part of her signature look. The photo above is of Parton in 1965 at about age 19, not long after she relocated to Nashville to pursue her music career.
“I was doing a lot of my hair myself,” Parton shared. “Backcombing, they called it then, came out. I was doing that back in high school. I was one of the few girls in high school that was having that big, old bouffant hair. My daddy used to raise bees and some of those hairstyles looked like a beehive, so maybe I was influenced by that.”
Signature blonde hair
By 1970, Parton had moved away from the beehive hairdo and more toward her signature blond wig hairstyles. The photo above shows the singer with her iconic blond locks, which is similar to how she wears her hair today.
“I started wearing wigs because I quickly realized that bleaching and teasing my hair every day would cause breakage and not look good,” Parton shared. “It was handy to have several looks that I could just choose from, and never have a bad hair day.”
Dolly’s 1970s look
Parton had reached significant fame by 1967 after joining The Porter Wagoner Show and later releasing her first hit single, “Joshua,” in 1971. Despite becoming one of the most famous country singers of all time, Parton always stayed true to her roots and remembered her childhood in Appalachia.
“I wanted to be free,” Parton shared with Rolling Stone in 1977. “I had my songs to sing, I had an ambition and it burned inside me. It was something I knew would take me out of the mountains. I knew I could see worlds beyond the Smoky Mountains.”
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This story was originally published April 28, 2026 at 4:30 PM.