University of Louisville Archives and Special Collections has released never-before-published photographs of Dolly Parton performing in Louisville, pulling images from a massive newspaper archive that had sat largely unseen for decades. The photos capture Parton sharing the stage with Kenny Rogers during a 1977 concert at the Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center, part of a collection that also includes shots of her performing at Louisville Gardens in 1993.
The release comes as tributes to Parton pour in following her death on August 25, 2026, at age 80, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. The 1977 concert at the Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center featured Kenny Rogers, according to a Facebook post from UofL archivists.
UofL Archives officials, in the same post, said Parton “wove complex and caring tales of the region's people and history through song,” and that she helped people “find meaning and value in their words and how they shared them.” The photographs are part of the Barry Bingham Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection, a trove held by UofL Archives and Special Collections.
A Pulitzer-Winning Photographer's Lens
The man behind the camera at the 1977 show was Bryan Moss, a staff photographer for the Courier-Journal and Louisville Times who was part of the paper's 1976 Pulitzer Prize-winning team for its coverage of court-mandated school busing in Louisville, according to the Indiana University Media School. Moss worked at 13 newspapers across nine states over a four-decade photojournalism career, the same profile notes.
The images sat within an enormous archive for years before resurfacing this week. Gannett, the Courier-Journal, and the Bingham family donated roughly 3 million historic prints and negatives to UofL Archives and Special Collections in September 2022, a gift that nearly doubled the university libraries' total photographic archive holdings, per UofL News. The collection spans approximately the mid-1930s to the early 2000s and will take years to process. The Bingham family also made a separate donation to support preservation, public access, and programming.
Louisville Gardens, the venue tied to the 1993 photos in the collection, is identified as a concert venue in Pro Wrestling Stories.
Timing Tied to a Wave of National Tributes
UofL's photo release lands amid a broader wave of memorials springing up across the country following Parton's death, including a Hoodline report on a Memphis bridge glowing pink in her honor.
Beyond her stage history in Kentucky, Parton's legacy in the Commonwealth is deeply tied to her Imagination Library, which she worked to bring to children across all 120 Kentucky counties. The program achieved full statewide coverage in June 2024 after Kenton County Public Library joined, making free monthly books available to young children from birth to age 5 in every county, according to WKMS.
How State Funding Made the Expansion Possible
That statewide reach followed the program's expansion into all 120 Kentucky counties. The WKMS report notes that the Imagination Library had expanded into all 120 counties as of June 2024.
Parton made her commitment to the program personal, too. She traveled to Kentucky in August 2024 to perform at the Lyric Theatre in Lexington, celebrating the Imagination Library's milestone of reaching every county in the Commonwealth.
-4.webp?w=160&h=400&fit=crop&crop=edges)
