{"id":637703,"date":"2026-10-22T05:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T05:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/637703\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T05:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T05:40:12","slug":"ella-langley-sings-jolene-at-dolly-parton-tribute-concert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/637703\/","title":{"rendered":"Ella Langley Sings ‘Jolene’ at Dolly Parton Tribute Concert"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tLeave it to country\u2019s current record holder<\/a> to tackle one of Dolly Parton<\/a>\u2019s most famous (and frequently covered<\/a>) songs. During Wednesday night\u2019s CMA\u00a0Presents I Will Always Love You: A Celebration of\u00a0Dolly\u00a0Parton, Ella Langley<\/a> offered her take on the 1974 hit \u201cJolene,\u201d which the star first performed <\/a>at her Auburn, Alabama, concert shortly after Parton\u2019s death<\/a>. Following an introduction from Katy Perry (who called Parton \u201cthe blueprint\u201d), Langley offered a smoldering version of the classic that paid tribute to Parton\u2019s original arrangement.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s an appropriate song choice for Langley, who broke the Billboard Hot 100 chart record with \u201cChoosin\u2019 Texas<\/a>,\u201d a song about losing her man to the wiles of another \u2014 not too unlike the premise of \u201cJolene,\u201d which Parton wrote when she saw her husband, Carl Dean, interact with an attractive woman at a bank.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cShe got this terrible crush on my husband,\u201d Parton told NPR in 2008<\/a>. \u201cAnd he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention. It was kinda like a running joke between us \u2014 when I was saying, \u2018Hell, you\u2019re spending a lot of time at the bank. I don\u2019t believe we\u2019ve got that kind of money.\u2019 So it\u2019s really an innocent song all around, but sounds like a dreadful one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tLangley took to her social media accounts after Parton\u2019s death to pay tribute to the artist whom she has called a seminal influence. \u201cDolly, thank you for standing up for yourself as an artist, a songwriter, a musician, a producer, an author, a creative, and most importantly a woman in this industry. You paved the way for so many to be brave,\u201d Langley posted. \u201cThank you for being unafraid to show your most authentic self. The world needed Dolly and will never see another like it. The gates of heaven just welcomed home a beautiful soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tStaged at Nashville\u2019s Belmont University, CMA\u00a0Presents I Will Always Love You: A Celebration of\u00a0Dolly\u00a0Parton aired live on Oct. 21 on ABC and Disney+, and will be available to stream on Hulu beginning Oct. 22. Proceeds from the event benefit\u00a0Dolly\u00a0Parton\u2019s Imagination Library. Other performers included Brad Paisley, Zac Brown, Carrie Underwood, and Vince Gill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leave it to country\u2019s current record holder to tackle one of Dolly Parton\u2019s most famous (and frequently covered)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,42007,12733,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-637703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-dolly-parton","tag-ella-langley","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}