Dolly Parton's immortal music legacy in 10 essential songs

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Set us as preferred Dolly Parton was the last star in music everyone in America could agree on.Her brilliant career as a carefully-sculpted backwoods icon (one with unmatched insight into the human heart) told the nation stories it craved to hear about itself — songs about resilience and dignity under poverty and labor, how to hold conflicting feelings of devotion and loss.

None of the canon of extras — the charmingly ramshackle Dollywood theme park, the purehearted children’s literacy initiatives, the rhinestone cowgirl aesthetics — would be possible without one of the emotionally attuned, beautifully performed and broadly reaching catalogs in American music.Music Dolly Parton, a national treasure whose country music career married grit and wit, faith and sex appeal, virtuosity and plastic surgery, has died.She is one of the finest singer-songwriters this country ever produced, and it’s inconceivable to sum up her catalog in just an LP’s worth of tunes.

But Parton — the songwriter, the vocalist, the instrumentalist, the collaborator — only ever wanted to invite a listener in, wherever they arrive from.Here are 10 songs to start with.Coat of Many Colors (1971)The foundational text of Parton’s career, this 1971 single lovingly details her mother’s make-do resilience, stitching a fall coat from scraps of cloth in the spirit of a beloved Bible story.

Its storytelling economy is just as crafty, finding splendor with humble tools, and distills Parton’s whole persona into one perfect song.Touch Your Woman (1972)You could spend tens of thousands on couple’s therapy and never get as good advice as “We can’t always both be right, we sometimes disagree / But you’ve got the right to speak your mind and it’s the same with me / When the anger’s at an end, and you want inside my arms again / All you ha...