The day Dolly Parton pipped Diana Ross to the single that sold three million copies in 1983
With a discography awash with utterly beloved country classics, there doesn’t seem to be any track that Dolly Parton can’t improve in some fashion. Back in 1983, for example, she stepped in on a duet that was originally penned for Diana Ross, transforming it into her own defining anthem.
By the time Parton recorded that duet, Ross was sitting on two decades’ worth of pop-soul masterpieces, having topped the charts on an eye-watering number of occasions, both during her time with Motown heroes The Supremes and in the solo career that followed. Still, those triumphant efforts, particularly during her Motown era, were indebted to the dedicated songwriting teams that always played to Ross’ admittedly broad spectrum of strengths.
When Ross left Motown in 1980, after almost 20 years at the label, she was in need of some new songwriting magic, and it was the Bee Gees who hoped to provide her with it. In addition to their own disco-fueled mastery, the Gibbs also wrote a deluge of tracks for other artists, and during the early 1980s, they wrote ‘Islands In The Stream’ specifically for Ross.
Although Robin Gibb seemingly suggested that Ross’ fellow Motown alumni Marvin Gaye was the original target of the song, “but he was dead so it was a bit difficult for him to sing it”, it is worth remembering that Gaye actually died the year after the song was recorded, so Barry’s affirmation that it was written for Diana Ross is much easier to believe, particularly given the pop-soul styling of the original version.
Exactly why Ross never got to record that single isn’t widely known, but the former Motown star was at a pivotal point in her career, having just signed the most expensive recording contract in music history, released a smash-hit album, begun investing in real estate across the US, and appeared in various TV and film projects.
With all of that in mind, it is easy to assume that Diana Ross was simply too busy to take a chance on ‘Islands In The Stream’; it isn’t as though she had any shortage of stellar material at that time.
Instead, the song fell to Kenny Rogers, who transformed its soulful, Motown-esque spirit into a beloved masterpiece of pop-country. However, Rogers was struggling to make the song work as a solo effort. “I finally said, ‘Barry, I don’t even like this song anymore’,” Rogers once recalled to People magazine, “And he said, ‘You know what we need? We need Dolly Parton’”.
As fate would have it, Parton was recording in the very same studio at the time, so the ‘Queen of Country’ was quickly drafted in to turn the song into the legendary duet that we all know it as today. In fact, the song is so ubiquitous and endlessly performed in the karaoke bars of the world that it is difficult to imagine Rogers pulling it off as a solo song, much less it being a soulful effort performed by Diana Ross.
Parton might not have been the first, or, indeed, second, choice for the Gibbs’ classic, but you wouldn’t be able to tell that by her performance on the track, which made ‘Islands In The Stream’ a crowning jewel of her already iconic discography.
