Prior to the upcoming 2019 MusiCares Person Of The Year concert this week honouring Dolly Parton, the music legend has spoken out about equality.
“I really think it should not matter who you are whether it’s based on race, religion, color or gender,” Parton told grammy.com. "You should be allowed to do a job and do your job. If you do it well, you should be appreciated, respected, and admired. I’m proud that I’ve done well in this business. I try to live that as a woman. I try to let it stand in the songs I’ve written through the years long before there was ever a movement I was moving in it and talking about it even my first album was called Just Because I’m A Woman. It was based on that and my mistakes are no worse than yours and just because I’m a woman. I should get the same chance.
“And we did the ‘9 to 5’ song, so I was trying to be an example,” Paton continues. “I try to live it and be it rather than just preaching it, but everybody needs to do it their own way. So just get out there and not let anybody hold you down.”
Parton is the first artist from the Nashville community to be named MusiCares Person of the Year. She is being honored for her incredible creative achievements and contributions to the music world as well as her long-term support of many charitable organizations and causes, including the Imagination Library, which she founded in 1995 to support childhood literacy.
The concert in her honour will take place February 8 in LA, and will feature Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, Vince Gill, Don Henley, Norah Jones, P!nk, Kacey Musgraves, Willie Nelson, Mark Ronson, Mavis Staples, and Chris Stapleton, GRAMMY nominees Leon Bridges, Lauren Daigle and Linda Perry and multi-platinum singer/songwriter Shawn Mendes.