Dolly Parton Said the ‘Best Half Hour of Television’ She Ever Made Was With 2 Iconic Musicians
In 1976, Dolly Parton spread her wings in the entertainment industry and began to host a television show. While it wasn’t always a perfect experience — she didn’t always feel that producers’ visions aligned with hers — she was incredibly proud of one episode. She worked so well with her guests that she went on to record an album with them.
Dolly Parton was very proud of an episode of her television show
Parton hosted the variety show Dolly in 1976 and 1977. Two of her early guests were Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris. She felt nothing but pride for the way they gelled on the episode.
“I did manage to do one show, however, that I will always be proud of. It is probably the best half-hour of television I ever did,” she wrote in her book Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “My guests were Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt. The three of us really got comfortable with just us, our voices and guitars. The result was some of the most unspoiled, pure country music I have ever been a part of.”
They sang “Silver Threads and Golden Needles,” “Applejack,” “The Sweetest Gift,” and “Bury Me Beneath the Willow Tree” together.
Dolly Parton said the television episode inspired ‘Trio’
Their performance on Dolly was so successful that they realized they needed to collaborate again.
“It was a forerunner of our Trio album, something else I will always be proud of,” she wrote, adding, “The way that Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, and I had blended so beautifully on that little local show made it seem obvious to me that the three of us should do an album together. We all thought so and tried to coordinate everything to do just that, several years before the Trio album actually happened, but it didn’t work out at that time.”
They released Trio in 1987 and put out the follow-up album, Trio II, in 1999.
She wasn’t as happy with other elements of her show
While Parton was proud of the episode with Harris and Ronstadt, she wasn’t as thrilled with the rest of the hosting experience.
“Too much was expected,” she told Interview Magazine in 1989, per the book Dolly on Dolly: Interviews and Encounters With Dolly Parton. “Too much publicity and promotion. It put all of the pressure on me, really. It was not so much my doing.”
Her vision for the program clashed with executives’, which made her realize it wasn’t going to be a success.
“Right out of the chute I had problems,” she said. “I saw in the first three months that the show wasn’t gonna work, ’cause I didn’t have the right staff; I didn’t have the right people with me. That’s another thing about havin’ city people with me – Hollywood versus Nashville, city versus country. I had a totally different idea of what the show should have been and could have been. I knew right away it wasn’t gonna make it.”
The show lasted one season.
