Dolly Parton – I Will Always Love You – 1974

Yesterday we lost Dolly Parton, and this one hit me differently. 💔

Before Dolly was one of my artists, she was one of my Dad’s.

My Dad loved country music.
I’m talking cowboy hat, mutton chops, boots, the whole nine. 😂
We used to joke that he was a Black cowboy before Black cowboys became cool.
And whenever I got into his truck, I already knew what we were listening to.
Country.
Period.
There was no voting. 😂

Growing up in a small town in Georgia, Country music was everywhere, but it wasn’t really my thing.
Give me R&B, Soul, Pop, Jazz, anything with some funk in it and I was good.
Country represented a life I knew I wanted to eventually move beyond.
Big City Desires.🌇

Funny thing though, because of my Dad, Dolly Parton slipped through anyway.
Coat of Many Colors, Jolene, 9 to 5, Islands In The Stream, Here you Come Again.
And especially I Will Always Love You. ❤️

Years later, before Orlando’s Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede closed, I took my Dad there.
I’m so glad I did.
He absolutely loved Dolly, and today that memory means more to me than I could’ve possibly known then.

Dolly came from almost nothing.
Born in Tennessee as the fourth of twelve children, she grew up poor, but somehow turned that little girl’s enormous dreams into one of the most extraordinary careers in American music.
And she never seemed to forget where she came from.

That’s what I loved about her.

Dolly created her Imagination Library in 1995 because her father couldn’t read or write.
What began in her Tennessee home county eventually grew into an international program that has put hundreds of millions of free books into children’s hands.
She supported disaster victims, education, medical research and countless causes, sometimes without making a press conference out of it. 📚❤️

Good people do good shit simply because they’re good people.
They don’t need applause for it. ❤️

Then there’s I Will Always Love You.

Dolly wrote it as a farewell to Porter Wagoner when she decided to leave their professional partnership and pursue her own career.
Her original recording appeared on 1974’s Jolene, produced by Bob Ferguson, and became a Number One country hit.

She actually took the song to Number One on the country chart twice, first in 1974 and again with a new recording in 1982 on her Greatest Hits album and in the movie The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

And because Dolly was sweet, but she damn sure wasn’t stupid, when Elvis Presley wanted to record it and Colonel Tom Parker wanted half the publishing rights…
Dolly said, “NO“. 🎶

Thank God she did.

Because in 1992, my girl Whitney Houston took Dolly’s beautiful country goodbye, put that voice on it and sent it somewhere into the stratosphere.
Whitney’s I Will Always Love You spent 14 weeks at Number One on the Billboard Hot 100, then won Grammys for Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female.

Something else I’ve always loved about Dolly…
She crossed every damn line people tried to draw around music.
Country artists loved her.
Pop artists loved her.
R&B artists loved her.
Rock artists loved her.
Dolly belonged to everybody.
Her 2022 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame only made that clearer. 🎸

And she could act too.
9 to 5 (1980)
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982)
Rhinestone (1984)
Straight Talk (1992)
Joyful Noise (2012)
Steel Magnolias remains one of my favorite movies, and Dolly sitting among Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine, Julia Roberts, Olympia Dukakis and Daryl Hannah felt completely natural.
That woman could do damn near anything. 😂

But today I Will Always Love You means something different to me.

I hear it almost like Dolly’s final letter to us.
She’s saying goodbye.
But she’s also reminding us that love doesn’t disappear just because somebody does.

My Dad gave me Dolly.
Dolly gave us this song.

And yesterday, she had to say goodbye. 💔
So this time, Dolly, we get to answer you.

We will always love you too. ❤️🙏🏾

𝑫𝑱𝒁7

#TheSoundtrackOfWhoIBecame, #DollyParton, #IWillAlwaysLoveYou, #Jolene, #CountryMusic, #MusicHistory, #WhitneyHouston, #SteelMagnolias, #ImaginationLibrary, #MusicMemories, #djzyonseven, #thesoundtrackofmylife