Dolly Parton Receives U.S. Department of State and Recording Academy®’s 2024 PEACE Through Music Award – United States Department of State
Today, the U.S. Department of State and the Recording Academy® announced music icon, global philanthropist, and 10-time GRAMMY Award winner Dolly Parton as the 2024 recipient of the PEACE Through Music Award, which honors an American music industry professional, artist, or group that has played an invaluable role in cross-cultural exchanges and whose work advances peace and mutual understanding globally. Watch Parton’s award acceptance video here .
Parton will be celebrated tonight at the GRAMMY Museum® in Los Angeles, at an event hosted by the Department and the Recording Academy® that also recognizes the first-ever cohort of the American Music Mentorship Program, which took place October 15-25 in Los Angeles.
An icon and force across the music industry, having reached audiences at home and abroad for generations, – with future generations to engage still – Parton embodies all that the PEACE Through Music Award represents: understanding, peace, inclusion, and unity. While her selection as this year’s awardee is grounded in her music and public persona, Parton’s commitment to serving others is unparalleled. Parton’s Imagination Library, which provides underserved children the opportunity to learn through reading, stretches from the hills of Appalachia to the outback of Australia. She has been a champion of public health, most recently around the COVID-19 vaccine, which not only reached millions of Americans, but also people worldwide.
The PEACE Through Music Award is determined through a nomination process, with U.S. embassies from around the globe submitting nominations for consideration by a selection committee created jointly by the State Department and Recording Academy®. The selection committee is represented by Recording Academy® members, U.S. Department of State leadership, music industry professionals, and academia, and provides recommendations. The recommended honorees are approved by the CEO of the Recording Academy®, then presented to the Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs, who makes the final determination.
The award is an important component of the State Department’s Global Music Diplomacy Initiative, which was announced by Secretary Blinken in 2023, to elevate music as a diplomatic platform to bring people together and promote peace and democracy in support of broader U.S. foreign policy goals that expand access to education, economic opportunity and equity, and inclusion. Music icon Quincy Jones was the inaugural recipient of the PEACE Through Music Award in 2023.
To learn more about the Department’s music diplomacy efforts, visit state.gov/music-diplomacy or email eca-press@state.gov.
About Dolly Parton:
Dolly Parton is the most honored and revered multi-hyphenate of all time and was recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Her current album Rockstar made history by scoring the biggest album debut sales week of her seven-decade career and earning her six #1s on the Billboard charts – Top Rock Albums, Top Rock & Alternative Albums, Top Country Albums, Top Album Sales, Top Current Album Sales, and Independent Albums. The landmark album also claimed the #3 spot on the Billboard 200 chart, her highest position ever. Achieving 27 RIAA-certified gold, platinum, and multi-platinum awards, she has had 26 songs reach #1 on the Billboard country charts, a record for a female artist. Parton is the first artist to have topped Billboard’s Adult Contemporary, Christian AC Songs, Hot Country Songs, Christian Airplay, Rock Digital Songs, Country Airplay, and Dance/Mix Show Airplay radio charts. Parton became the first country artist honored as Grammy MusiCares Person of the Year given out by NARAS. She has 49 career Top 10 country albums, a record for any artist, and 120 career-charted singles over the past 50+ years. On October 17, 2023, she released her second New York Times Best Seller coffee table book in a trilogy called Behind The Seams: My Life in Rhinestones. The first of the series was bestselling coffee table book Songteller: My Life in Lyrics.
In 2014, the RIAA recognized her impact on recorded music with a plaque commemorating more than 100 million units sold worldwide. She has amassed 11 Grammy Awards and 52 nominations, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, 10 Country Music Association Awards, including Entertainer of the Year; five Academy of Country Music Awards, also including a nod for Entertainer of the Year; four People’s Choice Awards; and three American Music Awards. In 1999, Parton was inducted as a member of the coveted Country Music Hall of Fame.
Parton has the largest fan base of all measured music artists in the YouGov database at #1 with 198 million. She has the #1 Q Score of all performers, solo and group. She is one of only 25 celebrities in the E-poll database to have an E-score of 100 and has maintained that perfect rating for 8 years. She recently won Best Brand Award, Celebrity, Influencer and Fashion at the 2023 Licensing International Excellence Awards.
To date, Parton has donated over 255 million books to children around the world with her Imagination Library. Her children’s book, Coat of Many Colors, was dedicated to the Library of Congress to honor the Imagination Library’s 100 millionth book donation. In March 2022, Parton released the book Run Rose Run which she co-authored with James Patterson which sat at # 1 on the New York Times Best Sellers List for five weeks, a record for this decade. She also released an accompanying album of the same name with original songs inspired by the book which reached #1 on three charts simultaneously – Country, Americana/Folk and Bluegrass Albums. From her “Coat of Many Colors” while working “9 to 5,” no dream is too big and no mountain too high for the country girl who turned the world into her stage.
