Dolly Parton and Cassadee Pope Perform on Live Telecast of 'The Voice'

EDGE READ TIME: 4 MIN.

Country music legend Dolly Parton will perform one of her most personal and beloved songs, "Coat of Many Colors," on the Tuesday, Dec. 8 (8-9 p.m.) live telecast of NBC's Emmy Award-winning musical competition series "The Voice."

Also taking the stage will be country star and "Voice" season three champion Cassadee Pope, who will perform her latest single, "I Am Invincible."

Parton will mentor this season's semi-finalists and share with them her infinite knowledge as a music industry trailblazer and icon.

Parton, whose career has spanned six decades, is the most honored female country performer of all time. Achieving 25 RIAA certified gold, platinum and multi-platinum awards, she has had 25 songs reach #1 on the Billboard Country charts, a record for a female artist. She has 41 career top 10 country albums, a record for any artist, and she has 110 career charted singles over the past 40 years. All-inclusive sales of singles, albums, hits collections, paid digital downloads and compilation usage have reportedly topped a staggering 100 million records.

She has garnered seven Grammy Awards, 10 Country Music Association Awards, five Academy of Country Music Awards, three American Music Awards and is one of only five female artists to win the Country Music Association's Entertainer of the Year Award.

In 1999 Parton was inducted as a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. She has her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and became a member of the National Academy of Popular Music Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2001. Broadcast Music honored Parton with their Icon Award in 2003, and in 2004 the U.S. Library of Congress presented her with their Living Legend Award for her contribution to the cultural heritage of the United States. This was followed in 2005 with the National Medal of Arts, the highest honor given by the U.S. government for excellence in the arts.

The remarkable upbringing of the iconic artist will be portrayed in NBC's two-hour movie "Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors" on Thursday, Dec. 10 at 9 p.m. The film is set in the Tennessee Great Smoky Mountains in 1955. It is neither a biopic nor musical about Dolly's whole life and performing career, but rather a family-oriented faith-based story about the incidents in her and her family's life around the time she was 9 years old.

Jennifer Nettles will play Parton's mother, Avie Lee Parton; Ricky Schroder will portray Dolly's father, Lee Parton; Gerald McRaney, one of the most respected actors of his generation, will play Grandpa Jake Owens; and Alyvia Alyn Lind will portray 9-year-old Dolly Parton.

Cassadee Pope's debut solo country album, "Frame by Frame," debuted at #9 on the Billboard 200 and #1 on the Top Country Albums charts. Her debut single, "Wasting All These Tears," sold more than a million copies -- a feat that ranked her as one of the select few solo female artists to garner platinum certification with a first release.

After a moving performance at the Special Olympics this summer Billboard has already touted "I Am Invincible," as a "self-empowerment anthem..." Since winning Season Three of "The Voice," Pope has toured with superstars Tim McGraw and Rascal Flatts and performed at major racing events such as Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400. She was also touted the CMT's Next Women of Country, and won the 2014 CMT Music Awards' Breakthrough Video of the Year.

So far this season, the Monday and Tuesday editions of "The Voice" are averaging a 3.7 rating, 12 share in adults 18-49 and 13.3 million viewers overall, according to "most current" results from Nielsen Media Research through the season's opening nine weeks, to lead NBC to #1 ranking among the broadcast networks on both Monday and Tuesday nights. "The Voice" is television's #1 alternative series this fall in every key ratings measure -- adults, men and women 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54, plus total viewers.

"The Voice" is a presentation of United Artists Media Group (an MGM company), Talpa Media USA Inc. and Warner Horizon Television. The series was created by John de Mol, who serves as executive producer along with Mark Burnett, Audrey Morrissey, Lee Metzger and Jay Bienstock.


by EDGE

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