Exclusive: Dolly Parton booked for Leeds Arena

The dates for the European leg of the American star’s 2014 Blue Smoke World Tour are due to be announced this morning and includes a concert in Leeds on June 20 next year.

Parton is best known for a string of hit songs including I Will Always Love You, Jolene and 9 to 5.

Tickets for the show, which is expected to be a sell-out, go on sale from Friday.

The singer-songwriter is the most honoured female country performer of all time and is estimated to have sold more than 100 million records worldwide since she made her debut in 1967 with Hello, I’m Dolly.

Her last studio album Better Day, the 41st of her career, was released in 2011.

As well as being a hugely successful singer Parton is also an actress, author and philanthropist and has her own theme park, 
Dollywood, in Pigeon’s Forge, Tennessee.

In 1996 she founded the Imagination Library in her home town of Sevierville.

The pioneering scheme provides a book each month to registered children up until the age of five.

It was introduced to the UK with a launch in Rotherham in 2007 and now runs in more than 50 locations across the UK.

• Book tickets to Dolly Parton at the first direct Arena at Eventim here