Dolly Parton wasn’t “big enough” to play the Super Bowl
It would be easy for any legend like Dolly Parton to forget the importance of being humble.
She’s practically a living legend of American music in general, but while people love having her around and treating her like a goddess among musicians, she never forgot about staying true to her roots and treating everyone with respect. And even when the biggest opportunities were presented to her, Parton knew when to dive into new territory and when shows were outside her reach.
Then again, never mistake her humility for being naive by any stretch. From day one, Parton proved that any celebrity has the ability to be genuinely kind and also cutthroat when she needed to be, and while that meant leaving a lot of great projects on the table, she would have rather kept her integrity with her than go through life wishing that she had never worked on one of her albums.
And for as much as the country has been divided over the years, Parton has always been able to see through any conflict and remind everyone of how great life can be. Her collaborations back in the day were the stuff of legend, and even though she has repped for the new school when appearing on Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter, there has never been an artist with enough goodwill to actually make Kid Rock look respectable next to her when they’re singing together.
That kind of person should practically be considered a national treasure at this point, but Parton almost revelled in the idea that she wasn’t quite as big as the true icons of history. She knew that there was no way that her brand of country was going to appeal to everyone, but even if she wasn’t selling as many copies as Taylor Swift or Michael Jackson, she certainly earned the respect of mainstream fans all the same.
So with all that going for her, it seemed like a no-brainer to get her onto primetime television for the Super Bowl. She might seem like a traditional pick, but there aren’t many people with the same national appeal as she does, and even fans that swear off country music with every fibre of their being would definitely be singing along to ‘Jolene’. But according to Parton, she figured it was far too big a job for her to take on.
Compared to the massive productions that have come from halftime shows by Kendrick Lamar, the Weeknd, and Prince, Parton felt that she was nowhere near that level of fame, saying, “I’ve been offered that many times. I couldn’t do it because of other things, or I just didn’t think I was big enough to do it — to do that big of a production. When you think about those shows, those are big, big productions. I’ve never done anything with that big of a production. I don’t know if I could have.”
In all fairness to Parton, it’s not like she’s going to be running around the stage nowadays in the same way that an artist like Lady Gaga might. She wasn’t built for that kind of stage production, but even if she went out there and tore through a handful of her classics, chances are the crowd would be satisfied, especially if she hits everyone with a massive triple threat of ‘Jolene’, ‘I Will Always Love You’, and ‘9 to 5’.
But even if there is a touch of regret for not taking the gig when she had the chance, Parton isn’t carrying around a lot of guilt or anything, either. She had already had to go through the trouble of rejecting Elvis Presley’s cover of ‘I Will Always Love You’ back in the 1970s, but no matter how hard her decisions might have stung at the time, she knew better than to reach too far past her comfort zone.
