Postumous Dolly Video at AMA Awards
When the Americana Music Association announced last month that it would give Dolly Parton a Lifetime Achievement Award, at its 2026 Americana Honors & Awards, there was an ominous sentence - in bold type - at the bottom of the first paragraph. It read: Parton will accept the honor via video.
It immediately raised speculation in the music media that Dolly’s rumored health issues had returned. And sadly, they had! For she died, aged 80, on August 25, just 19 days after the AMA formal announcement.
But true to the Association’s promise, Dolly did indeed accept – posthumously – the award by video. It is not known when it was actually recorded, but the country legend looked her same elegant, beautiful self as she delivered a heartfelt message:
“Hi it’s Dolly and I am so honored to receive this Lifetime Achievement Award from the Americana Music Association. I mean roots music, or what is now called Americana music, is what I grew up playing back in the Smoky Mountains.”
She continued: “It’s the same music that drew me back to East Tennessee back in 1997 to write and record my album Hungry Again. And that really opened the door to a series of bluegrass and acoustic albums that changed the course of my career in so many ways. New fans discovered these albums, new Americana music communities embraced them. Now, looking back at it all, I see this era of my career a music renaissance of sorts.”
She concluded: “ And I would like to thank everybody at the AMA for recognizing me with this award. It’s a great honor truly just to know I will always love you>”
And there was no one better to bestow this long-due accolade than the Queen of Americana music Emmylou Harris, Dolly’s long-time friend.
She began: “Just a few weeks ago something unthinkable happened. Dolly Parton left our world. But over her time here, this tiny, extraordinary woman made it a better, brighter and kinder place.”
Harris continued with some endearing one-liners:
“Dolly was more than the dumb blonde she sang about but never was.”
“There was nothing she couldn’t do, so she did it.”
“Dolly would say, If you don’t like the road you’re walking, pave a new one.”
And later in the awards event, legendary songwriter Bernie Taupin went one better:
“Dolly Parton should be added to Mount Rushmore”
There was no better song to mark such a special occasion than Dolly’s all-time favourite “Coat of Many Colors,” which tells the wonderful true story from her childhood as one of 12 children in East Tennessee. And it fittingly earned a beautiful interpretation by four female artists, the trio I’m With Her (Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan, Sara Watkins) and Brandi Carlile, who would later collect the Song of the Year Award.
The only question yet to be answered about Dolly’s award is why it took the Americana Music Association 25 years to honor her. Yes, she was certainly marketed as a country star, yet her remarkable writing and recording traversed all the strands - from gospel to bluegrass – which constitute Americana. Indeed, the Association itself acknowledged this in the original announcement: “With a body of work rooted in Appalachian traditions and enriched by country, folk, bluegrass, gospel and popular music, Parton’s songwriting embodies the very spirit of Americana – honest storytelling, emotional authenticity and timeless craftsmanship.”
Just to add to the intrigue, when the Americana designation was actually established as a music genre - the AMA was formed in 1999 – Dolly had long crisscrossed the music spectrum – as she alluded to her in acceptance speech. Indeed, in that same year she released her first strictly bluegrass album, the critically-acclaimed The Grass Is Blue. But much earlier, in 1973, she acknowledged her Appalachian, poverty-stricken roots with the country-folk autobiographical album My Tennessee Mountain Home. Then, in the 1980’s, she collaborated with fellow-superstars Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt to deliver two Trio albums which could forever be the definition of Americana. They would introduce a global audience to traditionalist country and sell millions in the process.
If Dolly was one to straddle various genres, then the other two recipients of a 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and Robert Plant – injected a whole new meaning into Americana music. For they travelled all the way from the world of rock ‘n roll.
It is now 50 years since Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers released their first album American Girl. Tom died nearly ten years ago. But five original members of The Heartbreakers - Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench, Stan Lynch and Ron Blair - accepted the honor. They performed three songs to open the show - with Grammy-winning superstar Chris Stapleton taking over Petty’s role on lead vocals.
Plant, of course, was lead singer of the British legendary rock band Led Zeppelin. And way back in 1971, when he co-wrote one of rock’s most iconic songs, “Stairway to Heaven,” he probably would have been barred from even walking past the Ryman, let alone received an honor onstage. But he has always had a love of roots music, and his conversion to Americana came in 2007 when big-name producer T Bone Burnett persuaded him to team up with bluegrass star Alison Krauss. Their 2007 release Raising Sand would win a Grammy for Best Album and roots was now his stock ‘n trade.
He alluded to this in a most humble acceptance speech: “Twenty years ago today in Nashville, on a Sunday morning, I knocked on the door, just up the street from here. And I was welcomed at the door by the charming Alison Krauss (applause) and the formidable T Bone Burnett. I crossed the threshold apprehensive and eager. And I was welcomed into their worlds - worlds within worlds – and an amazing adventure unfolded for me.”
It is somehow fitting that on a night which paid tribute to one of the great female singer-songwriters in history, five of the seven artists to receive awards in six categories were women.
And the prestigious Artist of the Year Award also went to a female – multi-instrumental bluegrass-roots star Molly Tuttle, who, like Parton, should have been honored some time ago. Her only previous Americana award was for Instrumentalist of the Year in 2018, yet she won a Grammy in 2022 for Best Bluegrass Album.
It has been a monumental past few weeks for Molly. And the first person she thanked was her “husband of three weeks” – Old Crow Medicine Show frontman Ketch Secor. And the couple demonstrated their togetherness when he joined her in performing “Rosalee” – their wonderful guitar-fiddle bridge earning the only mid-song Ryman applause of the evening.
Winners at 2026 AMA Awards & Honors
Artist of the Year: Molly Tuttle
Album of the Year: Snipe Hunter – Tyler Childers (Produced by Tyler Childers, Rick Rubin & Nick Sanborn)
Song of the Year: “Returning to Myself” – Brandi Carlile (Written by Brandi Carlile)
Duo/Group of the Year: Gillian Welch & David Rawlings
Emerging Act of the Year: Ken Pomeroy
Instrumentalist of the Year: Mandy Fer
Lifetime Achievement Awards: Dolly Parton, Robert Plant, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
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