Dolly Parton has a new place in the record books — right next to the lady with the world’s longest fingernails and the dude who has eaten more McDonald’s Big Macs than anyone else.
The country music legend has earned three new titles in the Guinness Book of World Records … and luckily, they’re a little tamer than “longest metal coil passed through the nose and out of the mouth.”
Now 75 years old and a country chart success since 1966’s “Dumb Blonde,” Parton was officially recognized as the female artist with the most decades spent on the US Hot Country Songs chart, with hits in seven different decades. She is also female artist with the most Number One hits on the Billboard US Hot Country Songs chart, and once again, the artist with the most “hits” on Billboard US Hot Country Songs overall. Parton has reached the chart with 109 songs in her long career, so far.
Welcoming the news in a small recent ceremony in Nashville, those new records give Parton four entries in the Guinness Book in total, after scoring her first in 2018 for most decades with a Top 20 hit on the US Country Songs chart (six).
“I feel like a bird that wants to fly away,” she said with a laugh. “Actually, getting the first one was really an amazing thing to me. I thought just to be in the Guinness Book of World Records one time would be great, and now that I’ve got all this going its just an amazing feeling.
“This is the kind of stuff that really makes you very humble and very grateful for everything that’s happened. I had no idea that I would be in Guinness World Records this many times!”
Apparently, “most times on the Hot Country Songs chart” was a record the icon already held (her new duet with Reba McEntire on “Does He Love You” just kept the streak going), and with her penchant for working, who knows how many more she might set in the future.
In fact, Parton continues to break new ground by recently unveiling a full fragrance line called Dolly: Scent From Above (just in time for holiday gift giving), and teamed up with best-selling author James Patterson to create her first novel, Run, Rose, Run.
All about a hopeful country singer chasing her dreams, the book arrives March 7 alongside a full album inspired by the story — and in her Guinness World Records interview, Parton explains how she actually helped steer the novel’s creative direction by writing the songs first. According to her, that allowed Patterson to base the characters on details from Parton’s songs, which in turn were inspired by her real life experiences. There might be another world record in that creative brilliance somewhere, but even if not, it makes you wonder:
What else should Parton get the record for?