Porter Wagoner Said Dolly Parton Acted Like She Didn’t Have ‘Any Kind of Soul’
After Dolly Parton left The Porter Wagoner Show, Wagoner continued to produce her music. As she grew bigger as an artist, though, Parton realized that she wanted more control over her albums. She informed her longtime collaborator that she wanted to produce her music without him. Wagoner did not take this well. In a number of interviews following their professional split, Wagoner railed against Parton.
Dolly Parton told Porter Wagoner she wanted to produce her own albums
After Parton and Wagoner went their separate ways, he insisted that he didn’t want to seem bitter when he talked about her. Still, while, he claimed he wanted the best for her, he didn’t respect her decision.
“It was the way the move was done, the manner in which it was done that was so wrong,” he said, per the book Dolly by Alanna Nash. “Because at each meeting that we would have with RCA, or with the record execs who were talking about directing Dolly’s career more toward the pop market, I never failed to mention at any time that if the production of her records was short in any way, I would be happy to work with or step aside and let anyone else get involved who they thought was better qualified. And even with this happening, the entire move was done behind my back and with her and RCA.”
Wagoner felt Parton owed him a better explanation for why she wanted to move forward without him. He thought that anyone with a soul would want to explain themselves in this type of situation.
“I don’t know why she did it,” he said. “And that’s the thing. I can’t understand why a person with any kind of background and any kind of soul would be afraid to tell a person that. Because I feel that’s something I should know, why it happened. And until now, I don’t know. It’s a heavy thing for you to have that much of your life wrapped up in a certain area and spend as much time and as much energy in the production of records, then all of a sudden see it crumble and not know why.”
Porter Wagoner said his career would have been different if he hadn’t produced for Dolly Parton
Though Wagoner claimed he did not feel bitterly toward Parton, he resented the impact she had on his career. He said he quit touring to work on her albums. If he hadn’t been so involved with her career, he would have stayed on the road.
“I worked the road a little more than a year after that,” he said. “But the schedule was so heavy, in having to put time in on her records and our duet records, that I decided to quit the road. Had I not been producing Dolly Parton’s records and the duet records, I would not have quit the road, ’cause my schedule would have been loose enough that I coulda done the things they wanted to do.”
He felt he had made a big enough sacrifice that she owed him more.
Her friends defended the way she handled the situation
While Wagoner felt like the wronged party in this situation, Parton’s friends defended her actions. People had long believed that he was holding her back and if she wanted to reach the heights she was capable of, she needed to set out alone. Parton’s guitarist, Tom Rutledge, said it had been hard for Parton to leave Wagoner behind. He thought she handled the situation with as much grace as possible.
“She had to go and face Porter and tell him, ‘I don’t want you producing my records anymore. I want to do it myself. I want to totally divide our careers.’ That was hard,” Rutledge said. “Of course, she’d given concessions to him. She’d have given Porter anything if she could have divided it all sooner. She would have given him Owepar and the studio if it would have made things easier.”
Wagoner ended up suing Parton. They settled out of court.
