.
“I happened to find the guy who was with Carl at that exact moment. They lived in an apartment, kind of on the way to the laundromat.
“Carl was an extremely shy guy, funny … and his buddy nudged him and said, go out there and talk to her. They began to date.”
Martha Ackmann and the cover of her Dolly Parton biography.
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They loved playing jokes on each other, though he wasn’t a fan of fancy red carpet events, Ackmann says. “In many ways, they were polar opposites. Dolly, very extroverted, Carl kind of shy, but they connected.
“What Dolly said later on is that what she liked instantly about Carl was that he was interested in her and not what she looked like.”
Parton initially struggled to find a job in Nashville. Her high soprano voice wasn’t recognised for its uniqueness, and legendary guitarist Chet Atkins once said she sounded like a screech owl, Ackmann says. (He later apologised.)
“She was singing these songs like Brenda Lee in the early 1960s, but she wasn’t happy with that. She didn’t feel that it was true to who she really was.
“She was also writing at this time, often with her uncle Bill Owens, and they finally had a country hit with a song called ‘Put It Off Until Tomorrow’. Not that they sang, but that someone else sang.”
Dolly Parton during a concert at the Théâtre Mogador, Paris, on 13 November, 1978.
Christian Rose / Roger-Viollet via AFP
Fellow country singer Porter Wagoner is often credited with giving Parton her first big break when he invited her onto his TV show in the ’60s. But “she never wanted to be anybody’s girl singer”, Ackmann says.
“It was the most creative period of her entire life so far. Her star was rising. His was going down.
“It was his show. She knew that. She acknowledged that. But it was really Dolly that people wanted to see, and he very much resented that.”
That friction clarified her ambitions, Ackmann says. As she kept writing, she penned ‘I Will Always Love You’ in her 20s — and Elvis’ manager soon called.
“The next day, [Elvis’ manager] Colonel Parker called and said, ‘Dolly, we need to get the publishing on that. When Elvis records a song, he gets a cut in that.’
“Dolly said, ‘I can’t agree to that.’ She said, ‘You recognise it, that’s my best song, and that’s my best copyright, and I can’t agree to splitting the money for this from here to Kingdom Come.’
“I think that’s another really important moment in her life, because she knew who she was, and equally importantly, she knew her own worth. Boy, did it pay off some decades later when Whitney Houston recorded it.”
Dolly Parton accepts the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award onstage at the 50th annual CMA Awards at the Bridgestone Arena on 2 November, 2016 in Nashville, Tennessee.
Gustavo Caballero / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP
Hearing Houston’s version for the first time while driving, Parton nearly went off the road and had to pull into a supermarket to recover, Ackmann says. “It knocked her flat.”
But Parton also endured low points when she felt her career was stalled and briefly contemplated taking her life, Ackmann says. “It was faith and family that got her through.”
Faith shaped her from childhood — her family attended church several times a week, she sang there, and her grandfather was a Pentecostal minister, Ackmann says. Hearing her mother tell the Bible story of Joseph’s coat of many colours while sewing her one from rags made her feel it was the grandest of all. It later inspired the song ‘Coat of Many Colours’, in which she recalls being teased at school for wearing it.
“She talks about her songwriting as a moment when she feels God moving through her most intensely. So faith, and not organised religion, but faith and spirituality is at the centre of herself and her creativity.”
Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s exhibit ‘Dolly Parton: Journey of a Seeker’ at Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum on 19 May, 2025 in Nashville, Tennessee.
Jason Kempin / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP
Parton’s appeal grew far and wide over her seven-decade career, even beyond music. Ackmann credits the continued admiration to her consistent decency.
“Ironically, I think it’s her authenticity. I say ironically because she’s the first one to say she looks fake. She once described herself as a cartoon of a woman. She says, I look fake, but I’m real inside, and people see that.
“Her honesty, her optimism, and the way that she demonstrates respect. Dolly has some of the most diverse audiences of any artist.”
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Although the 80‑year‑old no longer tours, writing and recording remain on the cards. Most recently, she released a duet with Belles for a ‘Jolene’ sequel, ‘The Son of Jolene’.
“She’s a master of reinventioning,” Ackmann says. “Dolly said she’s written about 3000 songs. It’s interesting that this week the New York Times here in the States did an article on the country’s 30 best songwriters, and Dolly Parton was among them.
“And I think nothing would make her more pleased than to be recognised as a songwriter.”
