Parton was open about the tension between herself and Wagoner when she told him she was leaving his show to be a solo act. Her voice filled the intimate theater while people sang along and a few of her more enthusiastic fans danced in front of their seats. The experience inspired “Jolene,” which Parton performed. I said, ’You couldn’t have talked to one of those hairy-legged men about a loan for asphalt?'” “He said he was trying to get a loan for his asphalt and paving company. “He saw me and came out, and I said, ’What are you doing?'” she recalled. She dropped by the local branch office one day and saw him talking to a beautiful girl. After they were married, she noticed he was spending too much time at the bank. Parton met her husband Carl as soon as she moved to Nashville. His solution was for them to do a duet: “The Last Thing on My Mind.” Wells covered Wagoner’s part. 1 syndicated radio show and told her that she wasn’t popular enough to join him on it. Porter Wagoner heard of Parton and reached out when his female singer quit. She said she moved to Nashville in 1964 and recorded “Dumb Blonde” with Fred Foster. When Parton was 10 years old, she wrote and recorded “Puppy Love,” which she sang for fans Sunday night.
After two weeks, he missed his family and the mountains so terribly that he returned to their Sevier County home in East Tennessee and never left again. She said she wrote “Appalachian Memories” for her daddy about the time he went to work in Detroit when she was a little girl. Parton told the well-documented story of “Coat of Many Colors” and how her mother taught her that poor was a dirty word in their home because they were rich with love. “I said, ’I do want to go to Heaven, but do I have to look like Hell to get there?” Parton recounted.
Her grandfather wasn’t supportive of her choice to wear make-up and told her to “get it off her face” if she wanted to go to Heaven. “That’s what I want to be when I grow up,” Parton replied. “Mama said, ’She ain’t nothing but trash,'” Parton repeated. “I said, ’Mama, ain’t she pretty?'” Parton recalled. She spotted the town tramp, who wore clear shoes with floating goldfish inside. While her mother was in the courthouse, she said she and her siblings stayed outside but weren’t allowed to go very far away. Parton remembers going to town with her family as a child.
She told stories about her grandpa, a Pentecostal preacher, then delivered a heart-filled acappella version of “Precious Memories.” Parton imitated her childhood voice and sang the song about the little blond doll. Called “Tassel Top,” she remembered her mother, who wasn’t sure what was happening, wrote the lyrics down as Parton sang them. Parton made up her first song about her favorite doll. She followed with “When Life is Good Again,” which she wrote at the beginning of the pandemic about the things she wanted to do when COVID-19 ended.īut much for of the night, Parton guided fans through the decades of her creativity – beginning when she was too young to write but old enough to dream. The audience gave Parton a standing ovation. “You don’t lose your faith because you lose your hair,” she said as she ended the song. Written by Victoria Shaw, Erin Kinsey and Jodi Marr, lyrics include: Someday pink will just be a color/ Not a ribbon to remember/A best friend or a mother. Parton opened her set with “Pink,” a vocal collaboration with Jordin Sparks, Rita Wilson, Monica and Sara Evans, that Parton recorded last year about ending breast cancer. “We’re not going to be dancing any jigs tonight,” she said. Parton told fans she was going to tell them the stories and sing them songs and that if she talked them to death, to ask her to “shut up.” “You know how you get when you get scared.” “I’ve not done a show in such a long time that I woke up this morning and thought I had a sore throat,” she said as she got situated on her stool in the spotlight. Dressed in her fitted, bedazzled hot pink jumpsuit with matching sheer skirt, she held the enraptured audience in the palm of her well-manicured hand for more than an hour. Other performers included Collin Raye, Linda Davis, Dennis Quaid, LOCASH and Todd & Julie Chrisley. The event was organized in part by Donna Wells, the wife of Parton’s longtime musical director Kent Wells, who was the only player to join Parton on stage. Parton headlined the Kiss Breast Cancer Goodbye benefit concert at CMA Theater in Nashville. Dolly Parton hadn’t played a concert since the pandemic began, but that changed Sunday when she took fans on a guided walk through her songwriting history.