‘She was an absolute icon’: Wem music shop hands out free guitars to young girls in memory of Dolly Parton

A Shropshire guitar shop owner saddened by the death of Dolly Parton has donated free guitars to young girls in the country legend’s memory.

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When Dolly Parton sadly died last month, Alex Harris, who runs Big Al's Music Emporium in Wem, was so saddened by the icon’s death he decided to do something in her memory.

The former guitar technician, who opened his high street shop after years of touring with legend such as Dave Hill from Slade, Alexander O’Neil, The Levellers and The Waterboys, thought he would follow in Dolly’s footsteps and do something for young people.

This week, he has handed out three free guitars to youngsters in the area, and plans to do the same every year on the anniversary of Dolly Parton’s death.

Big Al said: “She was an absolute icon, a great philanthropist and generally nice person.

“I figured if I could do something to help young girls get into music then I should.

“I’ve a couple of guitars in the shop that don’t owe me a lot of money so I cleaned them up, put new strings on them and decided to offer them to a young girl who might not otherwise afford one.”

Al said he planned to give one guitar away, but when he posted about his plan on social media, he said he was “swamped” with replies.

“I’ve been swamped with messages and I’ve given three guitars away to the local area, but it has been really nice.

“One of the young ladies, named Penny has dwarfism so needed a smaller guitar and luckily, people have donated money so I went out and got a small guitar especially for her.

“People have been really great and have bought strings off my website and put ‘for Dolly’ so I have been able to give these girls not just a guitar but accessories such as a bag, tuner, spare strings - it has been really nice.

“We will try and do it every year to remember Dolly,” Al added.