Dolly Parton’s Health Issues Prevent In-Person AMA Lifetime Achievement Award Appearance
In September, Dolly Parton will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Americana Music Association. The association will honor the impact Parton’s decades-long career has had on the genre. While this is a big moment for her, Parton will not attend the ceremony. Her health issues have forced her to accept the award virtually.
Dolly Parton will receive an AMA lifetime achievement award
On Sept. 16, the Americana Music Association will honor Parton with this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
“We at the Americana Music Association have long admired Ms. Parton’s work as a singer, songwriter, entertainer and one of the greatest ambassadors music has ever known,” said Jed Hilly, Executive Director of the Americana Music Association, in a statement. “With all of her extraordinary accomplishments — from philanthropy to television, film and business — our desire is to honor Dolly for what has always been at the heart of her legacy: a definitive songwriter and artist whose songs have shaped generations.”
Parton’s career spans six decades and has generated dozens of major hits.
Dolly Parton will accept the AMA lifetime achievement award virtually
Parton will not attend the ceremony in person. Instead, she will accept the award virtually. Parton previously took a step back from her career amid health issues. She said she has been dealing with kidney stones.
“I have some good news and a little bad news,” she said. “But the good news is I’m responding really well to meds and treatments, and I’m improving every day.”
She postponed a series of shows in Las Vegas while she recovers.
“Now, the bad news is, it’s gonna take me a little while before I’m up to stage-performance level, because some of the meds and treatments make me a little bit swimmy-headed, as my grandma used to say,” she said. “And of course, I can’t be dizzy carrying around banjos, guitars, and such on five-inch heels, and you know that I’m going to be wearing them. Not to mention all those heavy, rhinestone outfits, the big hair, my big personality.”
Parton has assured fans that she will make a return to her career in the future.
She has said she never wants to retire
Parton has been a performer for most of her life. She said she does not ever want to stop.
“As long as I feel good. I had a little problem last year (in 2015) … got stumped up with kidney stones, but it didn’t slow me down,” she said, per USA Today. “I was even working on the phone every day getting that TV movie together, even when I was in the hospital for a week or so. I’m amazed at this point of all the interest in my life.”
While she understands that her career might change as she ages, she doesn’t want to ever fully retire.
“I’m never going to retire,” she said. “I just want to do greater work. As mom would say, I’m letting the spirit lead me.”
