From classic country standards to old-school revivals, musicians across the North Sound region carry Parton’s sound to a new generation of listeners
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Dolly Parton died Aug. 25 at age 80, but the country music she helped define has long reached listeners outside her traditional audience.
Parton was intentionally pursuing that crossover nearly 50 years ago. In Tom Zito’s 1978 Washington Post profile, “Dolly Parton,” Parton said she wanted to remain faithful to longtime listeners while expanding her audience.
“I’d like to appeal to a younger audience,” Parton told Zito.
Decades later, that audience included children who knew her as “Aunt Dolly” from “Hannah Montana,” TikTok users rediscovering “Jolene” and listeners who encountered her songs through artists outside traditional country.
Dan Condon writes in his ABC News story, “How Dolly Parton won the hearts of younger generations,” that Parton repeatedly embraced ways of reaching younger people. Her catalog has crossed genres too: The White Stripes covered “Jolene,” while Beyoncé reworked the song on 2024’s “Cowboy Carter.”
Parton joked about adapting to new generations during a 2011 interview cited by Condon.
“I try to surround myself with all these young people that are really up on all this high tech,” Parton said. “You can just call me Digital Dolly.”
Across San Juan, Skagit and Whatcom counties, local musicians offer their own examples of country music being preserved, altered and rediscovered across generations.
On the San Juan Islands, singer-songwriter Kate Schuman performs music reaching back to the early 20th century, including jazz, blues and country.
Schuman has also performed the music of Patsy Cline. In his Journal of the San Juan Islands review, “‘Always … Patsy Cline’: Don’t miss this show,” Miguel Herbert wrote that Schuman’s portrayal of Cline could make an audience feel transported into the past. Herbert, who identified himself as a 1950s rock ’n’ roll fan, said the performance made him a country fan.
Cline belonged to the generation immediately preceding Parton’s rise. The Library of Congress’ biography of Parton names Cline among the female country pioneers who came before her and credits Parton with helping establish a stronger female presence in country music.
In Skagit County, Forest Stoke, the solo project of musician Zach Hamer, takes country in a different direction.
Hamer previously performed with indie folk-rock band Kuinka before turning toward folk and country in his solo work. Jesse Stanton described Forest Stoke as falling on the “folk/blues/country side of things” in his Cascadia Daily News music preview, “Live music calendar: March 14–23, 2025.”
Forest Stoke has even transformed Rob Zombie’s 1998 industrial-metal song “Dragula” into a country cover. Performance biographies have described Hamer’s style as “y’allternative,” reflecting a version of country comfortable borrowing from music well outside the genre.
Parton spent much of her career crossing those boundaries herself. Her move toward pop initially risked alienating the Nashville audience that established her career.
“I’m not leaving country,” Parton later recalled saying, according to a 2008 Billboard profile. “How could I not be country with a mouth like mine and this backwoods Barbie look?”
In Bellingham, Buddy Mac and the Ten-Gallon Troubadours are moving in the opposite direction, back to the genre’s beginning.
Buddy Mac is the stage name of young musician Brady McAtee. Jesse Stanton writes in his Cascadia Daily News profile, “Buddy Mac leads Bellingham’s old-school country revival,” that McAtee inherited more than 10,000 country and bluegrass records from his great-grandfather.
His band now performs country from the 1930s through the 1950s, drawing from musicians including Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers. The performances include lap steel guitar, harmonica, bass and plenty of yodeling.
McAtee’s return to those older sounds echoes a pattern that followed Parton throughout her career: country music passed between generations without staying exactly the same.
Parton grew up learning the folk songs her mother sang before she even owned an instrument. Decades later, she reflected on that history in a foreword for the Grand Ole Opry’s 70th anniversary.
“I wanted to be a part of country music as far back as I can remember,” Parton wrote. “My mother used to sing old folk songs to my brothers and sisters and me, and I quickly followed her example.”
From songs passed down by her mother in East Tennessee to thousands of inherited records inspiring a young musician in Bellingham, Parton understood country as something received and carried forward.
“Country music means a lot to me,” she wrote. “It’s been my roots and my livelihood.”
—By Allie Van Parys
Allie Van Parys is a journalist, PR consultant and musician based in Seattle following her graduation from Western Washington University. Catch her at the beach or making social media posts at all hours of the day.