Did We Expect Dolly Parton’s Posthumous Chart Takeover?

The death of country music and entertainment icon Dolly Parton obviously led to a wide outpouring of grief and affection following its announcement last Tuesday (Aug.

25).

Now, it’s also led to a major impact on the Billboard charts.

Related Dolly Parton’s ‘Jolene’ & ‘I Will Always Love You’ Recordings Become Top 40 Hot 100 Hits for the First Time Dolly Parton Returns to Billboard 200 Top 5, Notching Second-Highest-Charting Album Ever Dolly Parton’s Catalog Surges by 1,143% in Streams After Her Death For this week’s Billboard Hot 100 (dated Sept.

5), Parton posthumously re-charts five classic titles — “Jolene” (No.

16), “9 to 5” (No.

18), “Islands in the Stream” with Kenny Rogers (No.

26), “I Will Always Love You” (No.

27) and “Here You Come Again” (No.

43) — despite her death coming with just two and a half days to go in that Billboard tracking week (Aug.

21-27).

Most impressively, “Jolene” and “Always” both reach new best placements on the chart, with the former surpassing its original 1974 high of No.

60, and “Always” passing the No.

53 peak it hit upon the 1974 ballad’s 1982 re-recording for the soundtrack to Parton film vehicle The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas .