Thirty years of flirting, a funeral tribute, and a weird Trump comparison.
Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers were one of the most iconic duos in music
history. But were they just musical partners, close friends, or more?
Music royalty is filled with legendary pairings: John Lennon and Paul McCartney,
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, Darryl Hall and John Oates,
and, of course, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers.
There's something undeniably electric about their on-stage appearances. Watch them perform together
and it's clear that they not only truly love what they do, but they genuinely adore each other.
Their successful friendship and musical partnership has led to some memorable and
enduring classics, and their combined stardom lit up the country music world for decades.
Parton and Rogers' obvious chemistry led to persistent rumors that they
were romantically involved, but Parton has been wed to her beloved husband
Carl since 1966, and Rogers married five different women in his 81 years.
Rogers commented on his inability to stay committed to one woman in
a 2012 interview with Anderson Cooper, saying:
"I don't think I hurt anybody, I just … I don't think I was fair to them."
Both Rogers and Parton had to answer questions about their relationship many
times since they first met, and went on the record repeatedly to talk about it.
And while it's hard for us now to even imagine a world before Kenny and Dolly,
she was already a well-established star and he was a rising talent when they first met.
That first encounter came when he appeared on her television show, "Dolly," in 1976. Rogers
admitted that he and Parton didn't necessarily hit it off right away, telling The Atlantic:
"I would like to say that we became immediate friends, but we didn’t.
I was just another guest in the mix of her very busy schedule."
Fast forward to 1983 when the Bee Gees – Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb – brought a song they
had written to Rogers, who couldn't quite make it work on his own. He told Taste of Country in 2013,
"And I finally said, 'Barry,
I don't even like this song anymore' and he said, 'We need Dolly Parton.'"
Ken Kragen, who was at the time both Rogers' and the Bee Gees' manager,
said he had seen her in the studio offices and Rogers told him,
"'Well go get her.' And Dolly, in her inimitable fashion, marched into the room
and the song was never the same."
The rest, as they say, is music history.
Rogers later wrote in his memoir:
"I've lived through earthquakes in California, twisters in Kansas,
and hurricanes in Georgia, but nothing prepared me for working with Dolly."
"Islands in the Stream" was released in 1983. Kenny and Dolly went on tour
together, did a Christmas album and special, and recorded more duets.
All the while, their undeniable chemistry kept rumors flowing about whether they
were just friends or something more. But knowing more about their common experiences
growing up definitely explains why they became so close so quickly as adults.
Parton was one of 12 children and grew up in the Tennessee mountains.
Money was always scarce for the Partons, but young Dolly discovered her love of music in church.
She was given a guitar as a gift, and with her incredible talent, there was no looking back.
Rogers was one of seven children, and spent his early years living in a federal housing
project in Houston, Texas. It was up to Kenny to buy himself his first guitar,
which he finally was able to do in high school.
Parton got an earlier start. She was just 10 years old when she started performing on local
TV and radio stations and appeared alongside her uncle, Bill Owens,
at the Grand Ole Opry when she was only 13. She told A&E's "Biography" that neither she
nor Rogers have forgotten where they came from, and their common upbringing brought them closer.
"He, like me,
was brought up very poor. We understood that world and how much we wanted things."
Despite the fact that Parton has been happily married for the entire time
she's known Rogers, she has constantly faced questions about their relationship.
She always insisted that they were good friends and even noted that their
friendship extended to their respective touring groups. She told People in 2013,
“We’d eat, hang out, and we found we really liked each other. It was a wonderful group of people. My
band members, his band members, everybody was like family. Kenny was always like a relative to me.”
Rogers certainly felt the temptation, but told HuffPost Live host Marc Lamont Hill
that any lingering tension only added life to their friendship.
"We just teased each other, and we flirted with each other for 30 years."
He went on to say that Parton was truly one of the most valued people in his
life and someone with whom he felt an enduring and unbreakable connection.
Given how close they were as friends and how much they enjoyed working together,
Rogers didn't want to disrupt that for a shot at romance. He told People,
"We may have been tempted but we didn’t want to ruin a good friendship. I think it would have.”
Parton agreed, saying that they had both seen too many friendships ruined by going to the next step.
"We never did go there. There was always so
much other stuff going for us. So much love and friendship."
Rogers also acknowledged that Parton was already married, and had been for a long time,
when they first met. As for any possibility that she might stray in his direction, she said:
"He’s been married about 40 times! I couldn't catch him between wives!"
The pair even joked about the idea on the Today show.
Rogers claimed,
"First of all, she's hard to look at for me."
Parton responded that she wasn't Rogers' type, to which he countered,
"I'm a believer that tension is better if you keep it than if you satisfy it.
And then secondly, she said no to me."
But Parton set the record straight, saying that they were too close to get together in that way.
"You know what, we were almost like brother and sister … So we just never went there."
The bottom line? They just meant too much to each other to jeopardize their friendship,
marriages, and professional success.
If anyone would have had a right to be jealous of Dolly and Kenny's friendship,
it would have been their spouses.
Rogers was married to Marianne Gordon from 1977 until 1993,
when he and Parton were recording their biggest hits and touring together.
But Gordon told Closer Weekly she never worried
about her husband having an affair with Parton, saying:
"I never felt uncomfortable at all. I just knew him so well."
She admits their divorce was difficult but insists Parton had nothing to do with it,
blaming it on Rogers' simultaneous mid-life and career crises.
Apparently at that time Rogers was even having nightmares where he came out on stage only to
find an empty theater, and he genuinely feared the end of his career had come.
But she remains fond of their time together, saying:
"He was so sweet. I always felt his total focus was on me."
Even country music legends like Dolly Parton have had celebrity crushes.
In an interview with The Big Crush, she confessed to having pined for another
Tennessee music megastar long before she was famous herself.
Parton met Johnny Cash when she was first starting out in the music business,
and to the wide-eyed 13-year-old he was nothing short of magical. She told The Big Issue:
"Johnny was all strung out on drugs and everything, but he was so magnetic, so sexy. He
was my first male grown-up crush, he just really moved me ... He always got a kick out of that."
While Cash found it hilarious that he'd been Parton's first love,
she was more fortunate in her first meeting with Rogers, telling Biography:
"You never really know where you're gonna run
across somebody that's just gonna be partners for life."
Parton and Rogers have spoken candidly about their feelings for each other,
and it's pretty adorable stuff.
Parton told Country Fancast in 2017 just how close they were, saying:
"Kenny's friendship means more to me than our hit records. Actually, we're kind of soulmates."
She used the same word again to describe her relationship with
Rogers in the intro to the "You Can't Make Old Friends" video.
She thought the song summed up their relationship perfectly, telling Pop Matters,
"That song was very emotional, because of our relationship and
the fact that we're both older ... and when we were talking about when
St. Peter knocks on the door and you come walking in, it makes you think."
Songwriter Don Schlitz, who also wrote Rogers biggest hit, "The Gambler,"
said penning the song was one of the high points of his career, saying:
"It's a great honor to be a part of that."
Like any other close friends, Kenny and Dolly have had some awkward moments.
Parton has always refused to come right out and say just what her political stance is.
She usually deflects questions with a joke, or just says outright that she has too many
fans from all walks of life to alienate anyone by coming down on one side of the fence or the other.
She told WJHL in Johnson City, Tennessee in 2018:
"You'll find me and my opinions in a lot of the songs, but most of it's based on
love and acceptance and lifting people up."
On the other hand, Rogers made it clear that he
was a Donald Trump supporter. He told The Guardian in 2015,
"I really like him. I think his problem is that he says what everyone wants to hear,
but he doesn’t say it well. I love what he says, I have to admit."
Still, it was pretty surprising when Rogers compared Parton to
Trump during one of his shows, saying:
"She has no filter. If it goes in her mind, it comes out of her mouth.
And that’s what makes her special. She has become the Donald Trump of country music."
She addressed the comparison in an interview with Rolling
Stone in her typical disarming way, saying:
"Me and Donald kind of have the same hair. [He] could have meant that, too."
Parton didn't let that one one awkward comment disrupt their amazing friendship
and has never been shy about letting Rogers know how much he meant to her.
Rogers told Southern Living that during the recording sessions for
"You Can't Make Old Friends," he noticed she had left her booth.
"[She] came into my part of the studio, and she put her arms around my neck and said,
'Kenny, I think you should know, I could never sing at your funeral […] I love her.
I love her for that. You never know what she's going to say, but it always comes from love."
That love came out in each and every one of the powerhouse duo's performances,
and it continued to shine right through their very last time on stage together.
Rogers officially retired in 2018, citing health reasons. His final performance came
in a star-studded tribute special called "Kenny Rogers: All In for the Gambler,"
which was filmed in 2017 and aired in June of 2021, more than a year after his death.
Parton joined him for several songs and the duo wrapped up the show with the smash
hit that started it all: "Islands in the Stream."
The concert was full of touching moments,
like Parton's performance of "I Will Always Love You," which she led off by telling Rogers,
"I have a spot in my heart for you that's never ever going to be touched by anybody else."
Rogers told Closer Weekly that the show was a farewell gift from his old friend,
who wasn't going to let him disappear without a celebration.
Rogers was grateful, saying:
"You either have old friends, or you don't, and I have always had a friend in Dolly."
When Rogers died in March of 2020,
he had sold more than 100 million records and logged more than 50 Top-40 country singles.
Parton found out about his death the same way the rest of us did: by turning on the news.
She posted a touching video tribute to her Twitter feed, saying:
"I'm pretty sure he's gonna be talking to God sometime today — if
he ain't already — and he's gonna be asking him to spread some light."
Parton was clearly devastated by the loss of her long-time friend and collaborator, and added:
"My heart's broken, and a big ol' chunk of it has gone with him today."
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