Dolly Parton Shares Feelings on Retirement, Says She Wants to Sing with Ed Sheeran

by Cindy Watts 7h ago

Dolly Parton must have a thing for men with accents.

She recently won a Dove Award for her collaboration “God Only Knows” with Australian duo for King & Country. Last month, Parton said she wanted to sing a duet with Australian Keith Urban. And this week, she explained that British pop star Ed Sheeran was at the top of her bucket list of singing partners.

“I love Ed Sheeran,” she said on Amazon’s Country Heat podcast. “I always thought when I heard his little voice, or his big little voice, his emotional wonderful voice, I used to think, ‘Boy, I bet we could sing something beautiful together – to pick the right song that really has the way that we both can sing with emotion because we can feel it. Maybe someday I can do something with him.”

Aside from Sheeran, Parton said her greatest wish was to record with Merle Haggard and George Jones, but she missed her chance.

“I have a big heartache over (the fact) I never did an album with George Jones, who was my favorite singer, and Merle Haggard,” she said. “I had a few opportunities that never worked out for somebody’s schedule until it was too late. So, I hate that.”

Parton’s next collaboration is with Kelly Clarkson. The women teamed for a remake of Parton’s anthem “9 to 5” as part of the new documentary “Still Working 9 to 5.”

“Shane (McAnally) had rearranged (the song) and done it in a wonderful way,” Parton said. “They got Kelly to sing on it, and I sang on it, and I did some harmonies and background. Kelly knocked it out of the park. I thought our voices blended really well.”

Parton, who just released the book “Run, Rose, Run” that she co-wrote with James Patterson, the book’s companion album, a line of cake mixes and finished her hosting duties at the Academy of Country Music Awards, said that even though she gets tired, she can’t slow down. It would be irresponsible, she said.

“I’ve got too many irons in the fire,” she said. “I’ve always said I’ve dreamed myself into a corner. I wanted all my dreams to come true, and then they did. But, I still love what I do. I’ll always be doing this unless my health (fails) or something bad happened to my husband. That would be the only way I would ever retire.”