Credit: Far Out / Dolly Parton
Sat 19 September 2026 19:28, UK
Dolly Parton didn’t ever think that she was going to become one of the most immortal musicians to come out of America when she began.
Her entire career was about finding the right songs that resonated with her whenever she picked up a guitar, and there was no doubt that everyone embraced her music from the moment that they latched onto tunes like ‘Jolene’ back in the day. There was so much depth to what she was writing half the time, but Parton knew some other songwriters took everything great about country music and took it one step further than anyone else could.
But it’s not like Parton was alone when she first started shopping her songs around to different people when she first landed in Nashville. Some of the biggest tunes of her career were the ones that she needed to get through on her own, but she had just as much respect for those that made their greatest songs only to give them away to someone else whenever they were working on something that didn’t suit them.
That was her mentality, but it was easier for Porter Wagoner to convince her to keep some of the biggest songs of her career for herself. She would have been insane trying to give away some of the biggest tunes to someone else to sing, and while Wagoner did have some great instincts when he was by her side, she didn’t want to keep living her professional life at his side the entire time.
She needed the opportunity to work outside of her comfort zone, and that meant going against what Wagoner wanted half the time. There was a whole world outside of traditional country music, and she wanted to see what else was out there. Because some of the greatest musical mavericks that she studied weren’t afraid of making something that was a little bit taboo once in a while.
Loretta Lynn wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty when talking about the darker side of the industry, and Johnny Cash proved that a country artist didn’t need to rely on traditional values in every song. All that mattered was whether the song was good or not, and there weren’t many people that could make people feel like they were a member of their musical family quite like Willie Nelson did whenever he sang.
While Nelson has been known for being everything from a great songwriter to the kind of musician that could outsmoke anyone, Parton figured that he would be remembered as an icon because his songs were that good, saying, “I got to know WIllie in the early days when we were still songwriters. Our careers were kind of paralleled. He’s just great. I just love him. I hope he lives forever, and he will with his music.”
Further reading: From The Vault
And that’s back when Nelson was a lot more dorky than he appears today. He looks like the ultimate drifter these days, but back in the day, seeing him done up in a suit trying to get songs like ‘Crazy’ off the ground before giving it to Patsy Cline is one of the funnier looks into history and seeing what an alternate version of Nelson would have sounded like had he tried to play everything straight.
But the traveling lifestyle was always waiting for him, and when looking at the music he made after spending time in Austin, he was a completely different artist than any other assembly line songwriter. Parton had found her way out of Nashville,and Nelson was doing the same thing by showing everyone what country could sound like with a bit more heartfelt energy behind everything.
