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Dolly Parton Fans ‘Resented’ the Cover of a Majorly Successful Album

Emma McKee — Wed, 24 Jul 2024 18:24:00 +0000

When Dolly Parton released her album Here You Come Again, she felt an overwhelming sense of trepidation about how her fans would react. While she had already been working to cross over onto the pop charts, this album was clearly a jump. Many of her fans enjoyed the music on the album, but they still found problems with the cover.

Dolly Parton’s fans did not like the cover of one of her celebrated albums

When Parton released Here You Come Again, she was acutely aware that it might upset her country fans. She said that this was not her intention, but she wanted to continue progressing with her sound.

“I am thankful for everything good that has happened to me. I will never neglect or turn my back on any person who has ever helped me,” she said in the book Dolly by Alanna Nash, adding, “I will give my country fans what they want and what they need from me, but I have other fans that I must give what they want and what they need. And I must give myself what I want and what I need, because I have to live with me, and I have to know that I have done my best. That’s what I’m doing.”

Dolly Parton’s “Here You Come Again” | Donaldson Collection/Getty Images

Ultimately, the album was a hit with old and new fans alike. Her country fans had a problem with the album cover, though. On it, three images of Parton pose in jeans and a red top. Some fans felt the pictures were too close to disco and represented an unwelcome change in Parton.

“I don’t think they’re resentful of her switching over as much as they are of the pictures on that album,” a studio musician said. “And people resented her standin’ in front of that muscle man [Arnold Schwarzenegger] in Rolling Stone. They’re wondering if the sweet disposition and the clean mouth that she’s maintained all up to this point will stay the same. They’re worried that she’s not a clean-minded person anymore.”

Dolly Parton fans did not love the album she released before ‘Here You Come Again’

The album that Parton released before Here You Come Again, New Harvest … First Gathering was more of a disappointment to her Nashville fans. The album was her first attempt to hit the pop charts, and people felt she was turning her back on country music.

“A lot of people don’t want to accept it. They think, ‘She’s just disappointed us.’ Especially people who were close to her,” Parton’s seamstress, Judy Hunt, explained. “Then, a lot of other people have accepted it. I was very skeptical that she’d make it at first. I thought, ‘Gosh, she’s too country.’ But she’s comin’ right along.”

She said she worried about the way fans would react to her crossover music

While Parton knew that finding a broader audience was good for her career, she worried about the way her loyal fans would take it. She insisted that she didn’t stray too far from her roots with her new sound.

“I knew [‘Here You Come Again’] was the single before it was even mixed, but it was a little bit scary for Dolly to make a pop record,” producer Gary Klein said. “She was afraid her fans would say, ‘Oh, Dolly’s selling out.’ She did ask to have pedal steel guitar added to the record, so I added a few licks. But I pointed out to her that records like Engelbert Humperdinck’s ‘After the Lovin’’ make the country charts now. People don’t realize how broad country is.”

Despite her concerns, the album hit No. 1 on the country charts.

Dolly Parton Did the ‘Dumbest Thing Possible’ With Her Career, Said a Music Exec

Emma McKee — Sun, 21 Jul 2024 13:12:00 +0000

In the 1970s, Dolly Parton began to face some backlash in Nashville for the direction in which she was taking her career. Parton, who wanted success on the pop charts, became less of a fixture in the country music scene. She skipped one event, which a music executive said was a catastrophic mistake.

Dolly Parton made a major career mistake in the eyes of a music executive

In 1977, Parton was on tour at the same time that the Country Music Association was hosting Fan Fair. The event allowed fans to see live music, visit exhibit booths, and potentially meet artists. Parton wasn’t there, but fans believed she was after an announcement rang out saying she would be giving autographs at the RCA booth. While this wasn’t her fault, people grew frustrated with her.

“She had deserted her country music fans,” a Music Row executive said in the book Dolly by Alanna Nash. “She has to realize that she’s starting all over again with the pop fans, and they’re nowhere as loyal as the country music people.”

Dolly Parton | 20th Century-Fox/Getty Images

The executive believed Parton could have won people back over if she had attended Fan Fair. In their eyes, it had been a mistake to skip it.

“That was the dumbest thing possible not to come to Fan Fair,” they said.

Dolly Parton worried some of her crossover music could hurt her career

While Parton wanted to expand her reach as an artist, she did have concerns about alienating her original audience. When she released the song “Here You Come Again” in 1977, she worried putting it out as a single would turn away her country fans. Her manager, Sandy Gallin, pushed her to do it anyway.

“I resisted it, saying, ‘I don’t want to scare my audience to death,’” she wrote in her book Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “I wanted to put out ‘Two Doors Down’ first. Sandy said, ‘We’ll do it later. This is your first song. It’s going to be a giant hit. You’ve got to trust me sooner or later.’ I trusted him.”

Luckily, the song was a hit.

“I am very glad. He was right about all of it,” she wrote. “‘Here You Come Again’ was a huge hit, my first million seller. I will always be indebted to Sandy for his vision as well as to Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil for such a great song. Gary Klein did a first-class job of producing the record, and the Scotti brothers did an equally top-notch job promoting it. I had a big hit.”

She disappointed people when she didn’t go to Dolly Parton Day

In 1976, Parton disappointed people in her hometown when she was unable to make it to the annual Dolly Parton Day celebration. The following year, she attended the festivities, but it wasn’t the same as it had been in years past. Parton used to spend hours chatting with the attendees. This time, though, she rushed out shortly after her performance.

Dolly Parton | Bettmann/Contributor via Getty

“She came in on the bus and they kept her there until a few minutes before rehearsal, when the boys herded her down the hall, ran through a rehearsal, and then got her back on the bus,” Parton’s former principal, Jack McMahan, said. Of course, I realize that more people wanted to see her than she would have time to talk to, but even her mother only got to see her a few minutes. Mrs. Parton said, ‘Well, I gave her to the public three or four years ago, and that’s the way it’s been ever since. I hardly ever get a chance to really see or talk to her.’”

While people were proud of her success, they wished she had the flexibility of a smaller artist.

Dolly Parton Admitted It Was Hard to ‘Keep a Job’ in Her Band

Emma McKee — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 23:43:00 +0000

In the 1970s, Dolly Parton and her band toured constantly. They lived on the bus and in hotel rooms as Parton attempted to reach broader and broader audiences. The members of her band agreed that touring with Parton was a good job, so long as they could hold their position. Parton herself admitted that it wasn’t always easy to keep a job in her band.

Dolly Parton admitted that she was a tough boss to her band

As Parton worked to hone her sound as a solo artist, she hired and fired a series of musicians to accompany her on the road. According to her guitarist, Don Roth, Parton was a tough boss.

“First of all, everybody’s afraid they’re gonna get fired; there’s no stability,” Roth said in the book Dolly by Alanna Nash. “Because if she doesn’t like you, and chances are she won’t, she will fire you. If she doesn’t like your attitude, if she doesn’t get ‘good vibes,’ as esoteric as that is, from you on or off the stage, she doesn’t care if you’re the best player in the world. She’s not going to keep you in the group.”

Dolly Parton | Richard McCaffrey/Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images

Parton acknowledged that she had gained a reputation as someone who couldn’t keep a band. She said it stemmed from her perfectionism.

“I’ve probably gone through more musicians than anybody, but it’s not personal, it never is,” she admitted. “I have a reputation in Nashville — you can’t keep a job with Dolly Parton — but that’s not so, really. I have to have the perfect sound for me, and I’ve nearly achieved that.”

Parton said she had high expectations and expected her band to meet them.

“I can’t work with squirrels or dope addicts or drunkards. I expect goodness from my people, and I expect them to be qualified for what I need, and I want to be proud of the band I’ve built.”

Dolly Parton angered many of the former members of his band

Parton insisted that the firings were never personal, but this did little to lessen the sting for the former members of her band. Many people felt very negatively toward her.

“A number of other people got fired and, of course, all the people that got fired say, ‘Oh, that [expletive] Dolly!’” Roth said. “‘She promised this and that —,’ and some people are very bitter.”

She passed the burden of firing people onto other people

While Parton knew when people didn’t fit into the sound she wanted to achieve, it didn’t make firing them easy. As a result, she typically passed the job off to her band leader, Gregg Perry.

Dolly Parton | Paul Natkin/Getty Images

“It really is too damned difficult for her to fire people when she loves them, and it may not be totally right for her to have somebody else do it, but Gregg was all too willing — always. But he just does his job,” Roth said. “A great deal of talk is going around town — ‘That son-of-a-b**** fired me.’ All the poor bastard did was make a phone call because he was told to. I like Gregg. He’s a good friend of mine. But to Dolly, he got to be a convenience. To the point of where she’ll say, ‘I think I’ll call Don,’ and he’ll say, ‘I’ll call him for you.’ His title is band leader, but he has taken it upon himself to always carry her suitcase for her and to do just about everything.”

Parton and Perry had a very close relationship for years.

Dolly Parton’s Friend Revealed Why She Seemed ‘Snooty’ at a Concert in New York

Emma McKee — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 18:24:00 +0000

In the 1970s, Dolly Parton took the stage at a New York concert in front of an array of celebrities. Major musicians, actors, and artists eagerly waited to hear Parton perform. While Parton was her typical self onstage, cracking jokes and singing songs about her upbringing, at least one critic believed the act was overly calculated. Parton’s guitarist shared why it may have come across this way.

Dolly Parton’s guitarist said she was very nervous at a concert in New York

In 1977, Parton played three shows at New York’s Bottom Line to audiences that included people like Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen, and John Belushi. The crowd adored her, but one critic for the New Times believed Parton was overly concerned with “capturing attention than on rewarding it.” Parton’s guitarist, Don Roth, thought this resulted from nerves.

“I can tell you one thing,” Roth said in the book Dolly by Alanna Nash. “If she seemed snooty, it’s because she was scared. Because she’s scared of big city people and New York, to begin with. But if there’s one thing Dolly ain’t, it’s snooty. She’s open and funny — until she gets in a situation that she can’t handle, and then she goes into the shell a little bit. Because she doesn’t know how to be New York.”

Dolly Parton and John Belushi | Allan Tannenbaum/Getty Images

Though Parton exudes confidence in everything she does, Roth said she still deals with nerves. She didn’t feel she fit in with the crowd of celebrities at her show.

“One thing I learned a long time ago is that Dolly Parton is still very much a little girl. She’s very uneasy in surroundings she doesn’t know,” Roth said. “I think that’s the only reason she likes her bus. It’s a security blanket to her. She leaves the concert, she goes back to her little room on the bus. And I know she’s very insecure at these press parties she does only because RCA or Katz-Gallin says do ’em. She’d rather go back to the bus and get into a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans.”

Dolly Parton admitted that the celebrity audience at the New York show threw her off

Parton confirmed Roth’s assumption that she had been nervous. She admitted that walking onstage and seeing people like Candice Bergen and Patti Smith was nerve-wracking. Luckily, the audience responded to her with such positivity that she grew more comfortable.

“I was a little nervous — on the brink of being scared,” she said. “But when I walked out on stage, I was at ease. The crowd was just great.”

She said she was incredibly nervous before her first performance

Years before this, a young Parton prepared to sing in front of a live audience on the Cas Walker Show. She was so nervous that she could hardly breathe, but she realized she would have to overcome the feeling if she wanted to be a performer.

Dolly Parton | Bettmann/Contributor via Getty

“It was at that very moment that everything came to a head for me as a performer,” she wrote in her book Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “My insecurity came face-to-face with my ambition. My shyness banged head-on into my need for attention. This was what I had always wanted, and yet there was this fear. I’m not quite sure if it was the fear of failure or of success. Maybe it was both. I was either going to do this thing, and do it for the rest of my life, or not at all.”

Parton has been performing to audiences around the world since then.

Dolly Parton Was so ‘Tasteless’ at 1 Awards Show That the Audience ‘Gave a Collective Gasp’

Emma McKee — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 20:12:00 +0000

When Dolly Parton attended the CMA Awards in 1977, she wasn’t an audience favorite. She had recently released the album New Harvest … First Gathering, which took Parton’s music in a new direction. The Nashville establishment resented her move to the pop charts and some people weren’t happy to see her at the show. When she arrived, heads turned because of her outfit.

Dolly Parton turned heads at an awards show

In 1977, Parton was nominated for Entertainer of the Year and Female Vocalist of the Year at the CMA Awards. She wore a red, floral patterned blouse with one fringed sleeve and a pair of pants in the same floral pattern. She adorned her hair with a large red flower. The look did not go over well with the audience.

“She came out there in that garb lookin’ like a peacock,” one person said in the book Dolly by Alanna Nash. “She thought she was a million bucks, and she didn’t get nothin’.”

Dolly Parton | Paul Natkin/Getty Images

Parton’s former designer actively tried to distance herself from the look.

“That was horrible. Sick-lookin’. Like somethin’ you’d wear to a costume party to be funny,” she said. “I want the whole world to know I didn’t do that! I don’t know why she’d wear somethin’ that hideous, unless it was to get attention.”

Charlene Bray, an agent in Nashville, thought it was one of the worst outfits Parton had ever worn.

“I really thought it was one of the most tasteless outfits I’ve ever seen her wear, and when she came out, the audience gave a collective gasp,” she said. “But then she had that big song, and I began to see a little bit of sympathy and comradery expressed for her in this town.”

She performed a song that scared her at the show

The song Bray was referring to was “Here You Come Again,” the title track from her new album. The crowd liked it, which was a relief to Parton. She worried the song, which represented her crossover to the pop charts, would horrify her country fans.

“I knew it was the single before it was even mixed, but it was a little bit scary for Dolly to make a pop record,” producer Gary Klein said. “She was afraid her fans would say, ‘Oh, Dolly’s selling out.’ She did ask to have pedal steel guitar added to the record, so I added a few licks. But I pointed out to her that records like Engelbert Humperdinck’s ‘After the Lovin’’ make the country charts now. People don’t realize how broad country is.”

It was very important to Parton that her country fans didn’t feel betrayed by the song.

“She was questioning whether it would be a country hit,” her manager, Sandy Gallin, said. “She told me, ‘I’m not going to trust you again if the country people don’t like this.’ She’s very sensitive to not offending her country fans. That’s important to her.”

How many CMA awards has Dolly Parton won?

Though Parton did not take home awards at that ceremony in 1977, she is one of the most decorated women in country music. She has won ten times at the CMA Awards, even taking home a win for Entertainer of the Year in 1978.

She has also picked up 11 Grammys. With 54 total Grammy nominations, she has the second most nominations for a female artist.

Dolly Parton ‘Disappointed’ Nashville With the Release of 1 Album

Emma McKee — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 14:21:00 +0000

Dolly Parton has been a much-loved public figure for decades, but she once found herself on the wrong side of public opinion after releasing an album. Parton had achieved success in Nashville, but she hoped for more from her career. As she attempted to gain crossover recognition, she tried to land on the pop charts. This frustrated many people in the Nashville music community.

Dolly Parton ruffled some feathers in Nashville after releasing an album

In 1977, Parton released the album New Harvest … First Gathering, her first self-produced project. With it, she specifically aimed to land on the pop charts. She was working with a new management team, one based in Los Angeles, and hoped they would help her grow as an artist. It was a good gamble to make; their involvement in her career helped expand Parton’s audience.

Their involvement in her career meant Parton began working with new people in LA, though. This frustrated some of her longtime connections in Nashville.

“They don’t like us Nashville people. They really don’t,” her former seamstress, Judy Hunt, said in the book Dolly by Alanna Nash. “That’s sad, but I guess they think we’re dumb because we’re from the South. I’m really proud for Dolly, for anybody who can blossom out, and she’s definitely done that. But it’s a shame she couldn’t do that with Nashville people — people who really do care, instead of people who want the money they can make off her.”

Hunt said many people in Nashville didn’t want to accept Parton’s success. Still, she supported her.

“A lot of people don’t want to accept it. They think, ‘She’s just disappointed us.’ Especially people who were close to her,” she explained. “Then, a lot of other people have accepted it. I was very skeptical that she’d make it at first. I thought, ‘Gosh, she’s too country.’ But she’s comin’ right along.”

Dolly Parton took out ads in defense of her album

Dolores Smiley, an agent in Nashville, said many people felt negatively toward anyone who tried to break out of the country music bubble.

“I think you’ll find that resentment over anybody they think isn’t gonna stay in our own little convent here, but frankly I think Nashville is beyond that at this point,” she said. “Nashville has grown, whether we like it or not. Our old country music situation was awfully good and secure to us. But now we are in a highly competitive world of show business.”

Parton anticipated some level of backlash when she released New Harvest … First Gathering. She took out a number of ads defending the changes she made to her sound.

“Any time you make a change, you gotta pay the price,” she wrote in one ad. “A lot of country people feel I’m leaving the country, that I’m not proud of Nashville, which is the biggest lie there is. I don’t want to leave the country, but to take the whole country with me wherever I go. There are really no limits now.”

She said she would always feel proud of the music she put out

No matter how others reacted to the album, Parton said she would always be proud of it.

“Even if it doesn’t sell a nickel’s worth, it will always be my special album, because it was the first time in my whole life I got to do something totally on my own,” she said, adding, “This is by far the best thing I’ve ever done. It was the first chance I had to have total musical freedom and self-expression — the first time I’ve ever produced anything.”

Ultimately, the album was a success both with critics and on the charts.

Dolly Parton Revealed the Album That Would Always Be Special to Her, Even If It Didn’t Sell ‘a Nickel’s Worth’

Emma McKee — Sun, 07 Jul 2024 16:53:43 +0000

In 1977, Dolly Parton released New Harvest … First Gathering, the first album she ever self-produced. The album was a success amongst fans and critics alike and helped Parton cross over to the pop charts. She shared why it meant so much to be able to release an album like this, and why it wouldn’t have mattered to her if it didn’t sell a single copy.

Dolly Parton shared why one album meant a great deal to her

After years of working with Porter Wagoner on his show and as her producer, Parton stepped out on her own with New Harvest … First Gathering. She said the experience of producing the album was very important to her.

“Even if it doesn’t sell a nickel’s worth, it will always be my special album, because it was the first time in my whole life I got to do something totally on my own,” she told Alanna Nash in the book Dolly.

She explained that the album represented a major turning point in her career. She had to move on from her partnership with Wagoner and let go of her family band. While she said it was painful, she knew it was the right decision and the resulting album proved this to her.

“I didn’t feel the people I was involved with were dreamin’ as big as I was,” she said. “In certain areas, I was workin’ under pressure. It broke my heart to have to relieve several people, but I had to do it. This is by far the best thing I’ve ever done. It was the first chance I had to have total musical freedom and self-expression — the first time I’ve ever produced anything.”

She described it as an album of ‘pure love’

Parton explained that she liked New Harvest … First Gathering so much because it was unlike anything she had done before.

“[I]t’s the first thing I’ve done of this nature, and it’s not the only kind of thing I’m ever gonna be doin’,” she said. “I just wanted to do these things because I’ve done the others. And in the next albums to come I’ll be doin’ the kind of things I did in this album, in addition to the things I’ve always done — simpler things, and not so big on production. I’ll go back to simplicity and production.”

She added that while she may return to simpler albums, she would always feel proud of the work she put into New Harvest … First Gathering.

“It’s one of the greatest, most fulfillin’ things of my life,” she said. “There was just so much joy in it. It’s an album of pure old love, as far as I’m concerned.”

Dolly Parton said she felt stifled while working on other albums

The joy of self-producing an album was particularly sweet after years of feeling creatively stifled. After Parton ended her working relationship with Wagoner, he spoke negatively about her to the press. Parton said that while he acted like she blindsided him, he knew that she had been eager to grow on her own.

“Me and Porter fought all the time. We’ve fought for years,” she said. “I tried to tell him what I was trying to do. I tried to tell him my dreams and plans, but it was too touchy a thing. I had to go because we couldn’t share it together because he wouldn’t accept it … I have my own kind of respect and admiration for him. But he knows better than to make it sound like I just left, that he didn’t know why. My dreams were so big that they were turning into nightmares because I didn’t have anyone to help me carry them out.”

Dolly Parton’s Sister Cried About ‘Never’ Seeing Her After Fame

Emma McKee — Sat, 06 Jul 2024 17:03:45 +0000

As Dolly Parton ascended to higher and higher levels of fame, some people — including her sister, Stella — complained that they never saw her anymore. Dolly said that this was in no way intentional; as her career grew, she had increasingly limited free time. Still, it was hard for her family members. Stella teared up as she spoke about the distance between herself and her sister.

Dolly Parton’s sister Stella said she rarely saw the singer

Though Dolly is the most successful member of her family, many of her relatives have pursued music careers. Stella is one of them, and she was often touring at the same time as Dolly. As a result, Stella said she hardly ever saw her sister. Even when they were in the same place for holidays, they were rarely alone together.

“I used to share a bedroom with Dolly, and now I never see her,” Stella told Alanna Nash in the book Dolly. “I saw her in February, when you were at the house, and I saw her in May, when we taped The Mike Douglas Show, and then again at Christmas, and that wasn’t even alone.”

Stella and Dolly Parton | Terry Wyatt/Getty Images

Stella teared up while discussing seeing her sister on television.

“I was watchin’ TV the other night and she was on, and I thought, ‘That’s my sister,’ you know?’” she said. “And now we don’t even …”

The sisters accidentally booked the same hotel for the night

Because of their touring schedules, both Dolly and Stella spent many nights sleeping in hotels. They once were lucky enough to have booked the same place for the night, even if they didn’t realize it at first. It took an operator accidentally sending a call meant for Dolly to Stella’s room for them to realize.

“I said, ‘Well, is she here?’” Stella recalled. “And they said yeah, and they rung her room for me, and she said [here Stella goes into a dead-on impersonation of Dolly], ‘Stella, where you at? What are you doin’ callin’ me?’ And I said, ‘I’m downstairs, probably the next floor down. Look out your window and you can probably see a little nekkid body goin’ across the window.’ So she came down, and we visited.”

While Stella enjoyed the time they spent together, she wished they had known in advance.

“It was kind of a pleasant thing,” she said. “But I didn’t know she was there, and she didn’t know I was. If she had of, she’d have gone with me the night before to the Palomino Club where I was workin’.”

Dolly Parton’s sister shared what it was like to grow up with her

Dolly and Stella are three years apart, and they grew up very close. Stella shared what it was like to grow up with Dolly as a sister.

Stella, Frieda, and Dolly Parton | Betty Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

“We shared a bedroom together,” she said on the talk show Vicki!. “She was messy and I was neat. We would write songs together. She always wrote the good lines and would laugh at my bad ones. But it was not that bad.”

Stella said she always wanted to be with her older sister. While they butted heads often, they grew up as close friends.

Dolly Parton’s Band Said 1 Musician Treated Them Like ‘Country Bumpkins’

Emma McKee — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 17:52:00 +0000

In the 1970s, Dolly Parton toured with a number of other musicians as a way to build her fanbase and gain experience with her band. Some of these experiences were better than others. Parton’s band, for example, thought her tour with Willie Nelson was less than satisfactory. Her guitarist liked Parton’s tour with Mac Davis even less. He explained why he thought Davis and his band looked down on them.

Dolly Parton’s guitarist disliked the way one musician treated the band

When Parton fired her Travelin’ Family Band and hired a new group of musicians, people across Nashville bristled at the decision. To them, it represented Parton’s shift away from country music and onto the pop charts.

“Any time you make a change, you gotta pay the price,” she wrote in an advertisement for the album New Harvest … First Gathering (per the book Dolly by Alanna Nash). “A lot of country people feel I’m leaving the country, that I’m not proud of Nashville, which is the biggest lie there is. I don’t want to leave the country, but to take the whole country with me wherever I go. There are really no limits now.”

Dolly Parton | Richard McCaffrey/Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images

Parton’s guitarist, Don Roth, said that not everyone viewed Parton and her band this way. When they toured with Davis, Roth believed everyone looked down on them for being too country.

“Mac’s band is just real Hollywood and even though we were making a lot more money than they were, they treated us like a bunch of country bumpkins,” he said. “They’d invite us to their parties once in awhile, but they were just very much into their own little thing … We were all more professional, to be perfectly honest.”

Dolly Parton’s backup singer had a different view of the musician

Parton’s backup singer, Mary Fielder, had a different experience. While she hadn’t enjoyed Parton’s tour with Nelson, she liked working with Davis and his band.

“[It was] a great tour. I think the audiences were very responsive,” she said. “The band was more together than it had been on the Texas tour because we had longer to work together. And it was just really enjoyable for all of us because the people in Mac’s group and our group got to be good friends. I really enjoyed that tour a lot.”

Parton felt the audiences at these shows were too stuck up

Parton got along well with Davis, but her tour with him wasn’t her favorite. This had nothing to do with any of her fellow musicians. Instead, she disliked the way the audience responded to her act.

Dolly Parton and Mac Davis | NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images

“It’s a typical Mac Davis audience,” she said of the tour, per Rolling Stone. “But I wouldn’t continue this, wouldn’t let this be my career. This whole year has been an exception to all rules for me because of needing the money to run an organization. But after this fall I’ll be working more to contemporary and country audiences. This is not my type of audience and I say it’s good for me because they all remember seeing me. Whether or not they come back is beside the point.”

Dolly Parton’s Guitarist Thought It Was ‘Dumb’ for Her to Tour With Willie Nelson

Emma McKee — Thu, 04 Jul 2024 14:00:00 +0000

Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson have been friends since her early days in Nashville. The pair have collaborated over the years on music and television. They even toured Texas together in the 1970s. While Parton never had a problem with Nelson himself, the tour was not her best. Members of her band recalled the difficulty of the tour, and her guitarist said it was “dumb” to have even gone on it.

Dolly Parton’s band said her tour with Willie Nelson was a mistake

In the 1970s, Parton, who was trying to expand her reach as a solo artist, joined Nelson on a tour of his native Texas. The crowds they performed to were largely there to see Nelson. They talked, drank, and shouted for Nelson as Parton tried to perform. It was a challenge both for her and her band.

“The Texas tour wasn’t one of the highlights when I was with her,” backup singer Mary Fielder said in the book Dolly by Alanna Nash.

Guitarist Don Roth agreed. He said their first night opening for Nelson had been a nightmare.

“It got better because we started demanding sound crew,” Roth said. “The sound got to where it was mediocre — all the way up to mediocre. But that first night, it was absurd. But the rest of the tour went about the same, as far as the crowd. We did only twenty or thirty minutes in front of Willie. We took our money and ran.”

Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson | Katherine Bomboy/NBC via Getty Images

Roth believed Parton’s record label, RCA, saw the tour as a training ground for Parton and her new band. The problem was, the sound systems were consistently terrible and some crowds didn’t care about their music.

“I don’t know why we were there. Oh, yes I do. RCA wanted a throwaway tour for Dolly to polish up the new band,” he said. “They didn’t know the new band was all professionals and didn’t need polishing. RCA thought, ‘Give ’em a chance to get out and work with a big sound system’ that we’d never had. Eight cities in two weeks. That was a dumb thing to put her and Willie together.”

Dolly Parton said the first night on her tour with Willie Nelson was the worst

Parton spoke more fondly of the tour than Fielder and Roth. While she acknowledged that she hadn’t enjoyed the first show — people began chanting Nelson’s name as she performed — the other dates were not nearly as bad in her eyes.

“We had some problems with a few things — not with each other — but, like the night you were in Waco we had some sound problems and all that,” Parton told Nash, who attended the first show. “And the crowd was different. Different for me even than they were for Willie, but they accepted us both very well.”

She said she was sorry Nash had been there to witness the first night.

“I mean, Texas people just love music. But I’m glad I did it. The first night was the worst night we had. They’d just built a new sound system, and we had some problems,” she said. “But the first night was the only night like that. I’m just sorry that had to be the one you saw.”

Her band still sounded noticeably better than they had before

Though Roth believed the tour had been a mistake plagued by sound issues, he still said the band played better than they had in the past. Parton had been touring with her family band and had recently hired an entirely new group. With the help of band leader Gregg Perry, Parton’s band sounded more polished and professional.

Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton | Bob D’Amico/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images

“Well, as I understand it, the first show was real country bumpkin,” Roth said. “They would just sort of walk out on stage and everybody started tuning up, and then Dolly’d come out, and then they’d stop and tune between songs. But then they got Gregg [Perry, Dolly’s band leader and piano player], and with his experience on the road, he said, ‘If you want to tune your guitar, you tune it offstage. You walk out, the show starts, and that’s it.’”

Parton and Perry continued to work closely together for several years.