“He Started Crying” — Dolly Parton Talks About Playing “I Will Always Love You” For Porter Wagoner For The First Time

Makin' a grown man cry. Of course, I think most of us are familiar with the story behind Dolly Parton's iconic song "I Will Always Love You," which she wrote upon leaving the Porter Wagoner Show in 1974 to pursue a much bigger, more fulfilling solo career. She joined the Porter Wagoner Show in 1967, but the pair ultimately went through a very public professional break-up when Porter ended up filing a lawsuit against her, and Dolly wound up owing money to her former boss for three years after leaving his show. Porter formally filed a $3 million lawsuit against her in 1979, alleging a breach of contract, and eventually, it was settled out of court. The two eventually reconciled, but things got pretty nasty between them for quite some time. And in a recent snippet for an interview with CBS Mornings , Dolly recalled that Porter actually cried the first time she played it for him. He immediately asked her if he could produce it, saying it was her best song and agreeing that she could go if he could have that one last opportunity: "He started crying. And he said, 'That's the best song you ever wrote, and if you let me produce it, you can go.'" She agreed to it, and the rest, as they say, is history... though I think Porter still had some hard feelings considering he still sued Dolly, but he was clearly right in thinking this song would become a timeless hit and country standard. You can watch that part of the interview here: https://youtu.be/QPPstVk6Pwk?t=238 Even Elvis Presley wanted to record "I Will Always Love You," though his manager wanted all of the publishing rights and Dolly refused to give that up. She's previously called it the heartbreak of her life, but knew she just couldn't do that. In terms of moving on from Porter and finding superstardom, in the 2003 movie Dolly Parton: Platinum Blonde , Dolly spoke pretty candidly about the fact that she wanted "big time management" and a worldwide career, which is something she couldn't achieve if she stayed on the show after her five-year contract: "I wanted to have big time management. I wanted to get in movies by that time. I wanted to do everything that a body could do as an entertainer. I wanted to be worldwide. I thought, well, if I'm gonna be a star, why not be a big star?" I'm sure all of that was compounded by the fact that she had started making $60,000 with Porter, which at the time, was obviously way more money than she'd ever seen or really heard of in her life. Dolly grew up dirt poor in the hills of east Tennessee, so it was a pretty sweet payday for a young woman back then. But apparently, Porter rarely ever gave her a raise, and she felt it was unfair that he was making so much money off of her, because she became the star of the show very quickly, obviously, and she never saw any of that extra money: "I started working for Porter for $60,000 a year. That was what the deal was, and that was more money than I'd ever seen or heard tale of. But the thing is, Porter didn't raise me very much, but that was one of the reasons I had to go, because I was part of his group. He was making all the big money too because of me." And to attempt to keep her from leaving, Porter tried to convince Dolly that her label at the time, RCA, would drop her if she left his show, which wasn't true at all: "Porter had tried to convince me, and had told me over and over, 'They're gonna drop you as son as you leave the show, they're not gonna want you at RCA.' So before I had left Porter's show, I flew up to New York from Nashville on my own, made appointments with some of the main people at RCA. I said, 'Well, I'm here to say that I'm going out on my own. I'm going to be leaving the 'Porter Wagner Show.' I'm going to make a big change here. I'm gonna get some pop producers, I'm want to try to bridge the gap from country.' They were very excited, they got totally behind me." Clearly, she made the right call, and it's an ever-inspiring story about going after what you want and knowing your worth that can apply to anyone in any career. And I'll leave you with one of my favorite live performances of "I Will Always Love You": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW2TgGy5gjY