Dolly Parton’s husband warned her not to cover ‘Stairway to Heaven’ – but she was determined to prove him wrong.
The country legend has taken a new direction with her latest album ‘Rockstar’ and she admitted there was one track in particular her spouse Carl Dean urged her not to cover because he feared she’d be hit with a wave of criticism.
She admitted to Classic Rock magazine: “My husband is a huge fan of Led Zeppelin and thinks ‘Stairway To Heaven’ is one of the classic songs of all time.
“So he was kind of concerned about me doing it.
“He said, ‘I don’t know if you need to mess with that, because I think you’ll get a lot of criticism. People don’t want other people messing around with that song.’
“But I did it anyhow. And he made a joke about it at first, ‘I think that was more like ‘Stairway To Hell’ than ‘Stairway To Heaven.’ “
But Dolly – who had previously covered the track with a “countrified” edge on her 2002 record ‘Halos and Horns’ – was determined to do the song anyway because she wanted to prove herself.
She said: “I’ve taken some rock things off and on over my career and countrified them.
“I did the first ‘Stairway To Heaven’ in the bluegrass gospel field.
“But I decided, for this album, I wanted people to know that I could sing it in its original form.
“And I wanted, more than anything, for Carl to know that I could do that too. So I decided to be true to its form.”
Fortunately, Carl wasn’t afraid to admit Dolly had proven him wrong.
She added: “I have to add that Carl said [afterwards], ‘Y’know, that’s pretty good.’
“That’s really something coming from him.”