Dolly Parton's rags-to-riches-to-giving story

Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton performs on the Pyramid Stage at the 2014 Glastonbury Festival in England.
Ian Gavan | Getty Images 2014

Today's Morning Edition music is from "My Tennessee Mountain Home" by Dolly Parton, who celebrates her 70th birthday Tuesday.

Parton was born in rural Tennessee, the fourth of 12 children. She says that her father paid the doctor who delivered her with a bag of oatmeal and that she grew up "dirt poor."

Today, Parton is worth an estimated $500 million. In 1995 she started the "Imagination Library" literacy program in honor of her father, who never learned to read. So far it has given away 70 million books to children around the world.

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