Porter Wagoner Felt ‘Trapped’ in His Partnership With Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner worked together for seven years. In that time, Parton went from a rising voice in Nashville to a recognizable star. Many people believed she had outgrown their working relationship and was ready to move into a solo career. Wagoner resented when people said Parton had been stuck in their partnership. He said that if anyone should have felt trapped, it was him.
Porter Wagoner said he felt like Dolly Parton trapped him
In 1967, Parton joined The Porter Wagoner Show as a singer. She signed to Wagoner’s record label, and the pair began to release successful duets together. It was a major opportunity for her, but by the early 1970s, she began to feel stuck. When interviewers pointed this out to Wagoner, he bristled.
“I feel like that trap was pretty nice to her,” he said, per the book Dolly by Alanna Nash. “There were no complaints during the beginning of the show. I didn’t set the trap to catch her, y’know.”
He believed Parton set more of a trap than he did.
“It was set in a very humble manner of ‘Would you help me get my career started, because I’m a country girl from East Tennessee who’s trying to get a career started in the country music business as a writer and a singer,’” he said. “So if anyone was trapped, it might have been me. Because to me that’s pretty good bait there. That’ll catch a purdy big pigeon in your trap.”
He thought that Parton began to feel trapped once she achieved a greater level of success — a level of success that Wagoner thought she couldn’t have reached without him.
“It’s awful easy, believe me, and I say this with no resentment from Dolly’s career, but it is awful easy when you have something that’s successful for you to convince yourself, ‘I’m doing this, I’m the only one can do it, there ain’t nobody involved in this but me,’” he said. “It’s easy to convince yourself of that.”
Porter Wagoner said he didn’t make Dolly Parton into a star
While Wagoner believed he played a role in Parton’s career, he did not believe he made her into the star she became. She had always been that way.
“I’m sure Dolly had ideas of being a big star when she was just a little girl,” he said. “But I’ve had a lot of people tell me, ‘Boy, you made Dolly what she is.’ Well, that’s not true. She was what she was. I helped develop her into an entertaining star. And I’m very proud of the part in her career that I played.”
Still, he said he contributed a great deal to her music.
“I’m involved in a lot of businesses that I’m not in control of, but as far as the music business, I don’t want to be involved in production of someone unless I have a hold of the reins, so to speak,” he explained. “Because first of all I can’t do my best at something unless I can contribute my own ideas. I feel if a person knows what they want in the music business, they don’t need a producer, they need a good worker. I couldn’t do a good job for someone if I had to go to them and say, ‘What do you think? Yes or no?’ Because I know what I’m doing in the music business. I know my limitations and I know where I excel the best.”
Others believed she outgrew their partnership
While Wagoner thought the working relationship was more of a trap for him than for Parton, others in the industry disagreed. Fred Foster, who signed Parton early in her Nashville days, said Wagoner became a hindrance to her career. He wasn’t sure she ever needed the show.
“I didn’t think she needed The Porter Wagoner Show to do what she wanted to do, and I still don’t think she did,” Foster said. “I’m not here to attack Porter Wagoner, either. While I’m sure his show did her good in many areas, I think it also confined her terribly. I think it did her some real damage. She could have made it to where she is right now much sooner without that TV show around. It was more like an anchor.”
