The singer Dolly Parton considered the greatest ever: “Most popular country artists of all time”
Dolly Parton is still one of the few artists in the world who could have made it with absolute charm alone.
It helps that she’s still one of the biggest names in country music and created some of the finest songs that the genre has ever heard, but even if she wasn’t writing the most substantial songs in the world, people could tell that she had the biggest heart in the business before she even opened her mouth to sing. It’s rare to find someone who has the same passion for music as that, but for a split second, she could have had a completely different career in the business.
But looking through her back catalogue, it would have been a damn shame if we hadn’t heard some of her greatest tunes. ‘Jolene’ might be one of the more rudimentary country songs that everyone listens to, even if they don’t like the genre, but the reason why it works is because of how well she delivers it. She had the uncanny ability of putting the listener right in the middle of the action in every one of their songs, and that already existed well before she started collaborating with Porter Wagoner.
Parton was already becoming known around Nashville for tunes like ‘Dumb Blonde’, but by the time that she began working with Wagoner, she understood what made so many of her favourite songs work so well. She and Wagoner seemed like the perfect fit when they sang duets together, but even during her time, there was always that lingering feeling that he might have been overstaying his welcome in her career.
She didn’t want to be defined by one person calling the shots for the rest of her life, and while she did have major disagreements, her producer, Fred Foster, could see from a mile away that she needed to go in a different direction, saying, “I’m sure his show did her good in some areas, I think it also confined her terribly. I think it did her real damage.” But the silver lining is that she was able to walk away with one of the greatest love songs that she ever wrote for Wagoner as well.
‘I Will Always Love You’ was meant to be a farewell song to the music that she was making with Wagoner, but it’s not like Parton needed to be living in his shadow anymore. Some of the greatest tunes that she would ever make came afterwards, and even if she wasn’t taking the safe routes every time she made a new record, hearing her versions of ‘Here You Come Again’ was a lot more interesting than hearing the same tired Americana tropes that everyone was used to.
Still, it’s not like she didn’t have affection for the time she spent with Wagoner, saying, “Porter has been one of the greatest and most popular country artists of all time. I can never take the credit away from Porter for givin’ me a big break. I learned a lot from him. He inspired me and I inspired him. We were good for each other in many ways and just a disaster for each other in a lot of ways.”
Because it’s not like Parton was the one pulling all of the weight in her professional relationship, either. Wagoner was the one showing her the ropes of the industry in many respects, so when he did eventually strike out on her own, she knew when to pick her battles wisely, whether that was choosing who she was singing with on one of her tunes or whether to give some of her songs away to other artists.
It’s never easy to navigate this kind of business, but Parton was the perfect example of someone who was the consummate professional every single time she performed. She wanted the opportunity to be the biggest star that she could, but if she was going to take over the country world as she did, she was going to need to get rid of Wagoner one way or another before she reached the top.
