Dolly Parton has revealed that she cried all night after having a dispute with the Elvis Presley.
Parton turned down the chance to record with Elvis and this made her cry all night long. Elvis asked her to record a cover of Parton’s song ‘I Will Always Love You’. The track was released in 1974 and was made famous by Whitney Houston’s cover of it in 1992 for the film, ‘The Bodyguard’.
Dolly Parton explained the story in the writing to my younger self column in The Big Issue, per NME. “I’d been invited down to the studio to meet Elvis and be there when he sang my song. That was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. Who doesn’t love Elvis?”
“But then Colonel (Tom Parker, Presley’s legendary manager) called me the afternoon before the session and said You do know we have to have at least half the publishing on any song that Elvis records?”
She continued “And I said ‘No, I did not know that’. He said Well, it’s just a rule’. So I said Well, it’s not my rule”
“And I cried all night long, cause I was so disappointed. It wasn’t Elvis, I loved Elvis. And I’m sure he was as disappointed as I was because he had it all worked up and ready to go. I know he loved the song” said Parton.
The Country icon wrote about Presley’s wife of six years “Priscilla told me later that he sang that song to her when they were coming down the steps of the courthouse after they divorced. That really touched me and I thought, Oh well, I can only imagine. But it wasn’t his fault”.
Parton went on to choose The King as her last conversation with anyone in history to end their feud.
She said “I’d probably talk about I Will Always Love You and say Hey, I bet you were as disappointed as I was about all that and I still dream about you singing that song”.
“Matter of fact, I even wrote a song called I Dreamed About Elvis Last Night and I had an Elvis soundalike sing it with me and we actually sing ‘I will always love you’ in it”.
She added “And one day, I’m going to put that track out. So I think that I’d talk to Elvis, and just clear that up with him”.
Parton has received widespread praise as it emerged she donated money to a successful Covid-19 vaccine. The singer donated 1 million dollars for research purposes for the Moderna vaccine.
Dolly Parton stars in Netflix’s new Christmas special called, ‘Christmas on the Square’. It features 14 new original songs by Parton. Christine Baranski, Jenifer Lewis, Treat Williams, Jeanine Mason, Josh Segarra, Mary Lane Haskell, Matthew Johnson and Selah Kimbro Jones all feature in the film and it is available to stream on Netflix now.
