Dolly Parton wrote her first song, "Little Tiny Tasseltop" — a tribute to a corncob doll — at age five, before she could write the words down. Her mother, Avie Lee, transcribed the lyrics as little Dolly sang them. By ten she was performing on local Knoxville television; at eleven, she recorded her first single, "Puppy Love," on a small Louisiana label; at thirteen she appeared at the Grand Ole Opry.

The origin matters more than the trivia. There was no electricity in the cabin in Locust Ridge, Tennessee — just a battery-powered radio, a mother who sang old mountain ballads, and an uncle, Bill Owens, who bought her a real guitar. Her earliest songs were about corn whiskey, church, and the smell of supper on the stove. That set the pattern for all 3,000 that followed: the material came first, the song came second. She never once wrote at length about a life she hadn't lived or witnessed up close.