Dolly Parton is a household name in both country music and the celebrity sphere.
The Tennessee native has become nothing short of a legend and, despite performing and singing pretty much her entire life, she has loved to entertain her legions of fans.
But now the 76-year-old superstar has officially announced that she will cease touring, even as she continues creating more music.
Dolly Parton, in a recent interview with Pollystar, explained that she will not be touring anymore. She explained:
”I’ll do special shows here and there, now and then. Maybe do a long weekend of shows, or just a few shows at a festival. But I have no intention of going on a full-blown tour anymore.”
Instead, the 76-year-old country music star will continue to make music and will focus her energies on spending time with her beloved husband, Carl Thomas Dean.
In 1964, Dolly met Carl Dean outside the Wishy Washy Laundromat in Nashville, Tennessee. At the time, Dolly was 18 years of age, and Carl was 21. Straight away, Carl realized something exceptional about the young lady.
“My first thought was, ‘I’m gonna marry that girl,’” Dean said in a statement of the moment they met, as quoted by Entertainment Tonight.
“My second thought was, ‘Lord she’s good lookin’.’ And that was the day my life began. I wouldn’t trade the last 50 years for nothing on this earth.”
Dean was sitting in his pickup truck as he saw Dolly and “hollered” at her, as she recalled in an interview with the NY Times in 1976. However, she declined a date with him. Instead, she invited him over when she babysat her nephew just days after. It was the start of a love story that never ended.
In May 1966, Dolly and Carl married in a private ceremony in Ringgold, Georgia. Her record label wanted them to wait to get married since she had a career to think about. But Dean and Dolly didn’t want to wait, so they decided to tie the knot in Georgia so that the local press in Tennessee wouldn’t write about it. The only ones in attendance were Dolly, Carl, and her mother.
Ever since then, Dolly and Carl have been deeply in love. In 2016, the couple celebrated their 50th anniversary. To celebrate, they decided to renew their vows.
And now, they will have even more time together.
In the interview with Pollstar, Parton went into detail about her experiences with touring:
“I’ve done that my whole life, and it takes so much time and energy. I like to stay a little closer to home with my husband. We’re getting older now, and I don’t want to be gone for four or five weeks at a time. Something could happen. I would not feel right about that, if I were gone and somebody needed me. Or I would feel bad if I had to leave a tour if somebody got sick at home and needed me and then I had to walk out on the fans.”
The music star claims that her current creations in music will be in the rock n’ roll genre for her husband as well. Parton was actually previously nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this past May.
“When I got nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, I thought, well, no better time to do it.’ I had always wanted to do it. My husband is a big hard rock ’n’ roll fan, and for years I thought, ‘One of these days I’d like to do an album mainly just for him, just to kind of do it.’”
As she continues to work on her new album, the star is also reportedly in the works to create a Christmas special for NBC this year. As she explained:
“It’s a show within a show. What we’re doing is focused on the dramatic side. It’s showing all the things that go on while you’re putting together a show. All the arguments you have with the producers, all the problems you have with the artists, all the problems you have with scenery falling down and all the things that go on backstage, people having to cancel and reschedule real quick … I wouldn’t consider me acting, because I’m just totally myself in this. I’m just Dolly all the way, I’m not playing a character.”
In addition, Dolly is working with actress-turned-producer Reese Witherspoon on an upcoming film–”Run, Rose, Run”–that is adapted from a novel of the same name that the star co-wrote with James Patterson.
Enjoy, Dolly! You have given us so much! Relax and just enjoy your life now! We will always love you.