I Will Always Leave You

This is Dolly Parton's America, I'm Chad Abumaron. We are at the second of nine trips into the Dolly verse, and in this one, I want to tell the story behind the greatest selling song by a female artist of all time. You probably know the song I'm talking about, but if you don't, I'm not gonna tell you. It's just gonna happen organically. It's gonna be beautiful, but this is a song that hit number one in three consecutive decades. Think about that. One song just keeps hitting number one over and over. Well, behind that song are so many stories, the story of a collaboration, a historic collaboration, and the story of Dolly's grand metamorphosis. - I almost said on this pillow. That one was better for high. - Oh, can you, yeah, bring it up. I'm so little, I don't feel like I'm sitting in the floor. - Maybe not just hers, but so many people. I talked about it with her back in Nashville in that studio. - I'm not chair squeaking. - On that squeaky chair, we got to this story at hour three of the interview. - I'd love to ask you about Porter Wagner. - Okay. Now that's when I needed a whip. (laughing) - Earlier, we've been talking about rumors that she carried a gun in her purse. - That's why I had the whip. No, a porter? Porter and I had a love, hate relationship. It was, you can't even begin to, you couldn't ever untangle all of that. - But we're gonna try. - Okay, so it's 1966, you're 21. - Who was he at that time? I mean, for those of us-- - Porter Wagner was and is a legend. (cheering) - Thank you so much and welcome to our grand. - In country music. - Y'all come, y'all come. - Y'all come. - The syndicated TV show has been one of the most popular and country music best reporter had the number one syndicated television show at that time. - Pull up a chair and don't even move out of the room for the next 30 minutes. (cheering) - Thank you. - Porter put together a hell of a road show. - Journalists historian Robert Orman. - When you went to see a Porter Wagner show, you got a show, top notch comedians, top notch singers, and killer instrumentals, the whole deal. (chanting) - And consider the fact that, CBS presents this program in color. - This is when the advent of color television was kind of, you know, taken root in America. - This is country music singer-songwriter Marty Stewart. He worked with Porter toward the end of his life, produced his last record he ever did. - Porter Wagner and his band would come on. - Thank you, gang, boy, helping me open up the show and in those pretty costumes, bright blues, pinks, purples. (laughing) - These beautiful costumes that were made by our nudie, the rodeo title, nudie suits. They were called. - The suit itself is about $10,000, $3400. - Porter always dressed in rhinestone. - He was a magical character because those rhinestone suits made him twinkle. - But also, he had great records and great songs. He had a great ear for music. He had one hit record after another. - Now, Dolly, at this moment? - June 7, 1967. - You know, I was a young girl. - I'm 21 years old now. - And I've been here three years. - In New and Nashville at the time. - I get married a year ago, the 30th of life from my mother last year. - She had, as she says in the interview, Jessica and married. - And my husband's name is Carl, Dean, E-I-R-L, the E-A-N. - To a guy named Carl, who from that point until now has been seen in public, like almost never. - We have at least two or three sounds placed a week. - In any case, at this point, 1967? You know, the publishing company always checks to see who's in pan, who's recording. So we pick out songs that we think would fit certain artists and then we take them and leave them. - Dolly was just one of this wave of songwriters. - Thousands in the week come through Nashville. - Who were in Nashville trying to make it. - What percentage ever make it? Probably one, one hundred to one percent. - That's how one record exec put it at the time. - And I was really having some major hard times. - She's just trying to get by. She's like stealing food scraps in hotel hallways off of deserted room service trays. - This is writer Sarah Smarsh. - Stealing might be the wrong word. I don't know. Discarded food. That's how she, she can't. - That's true that you did that? - Oh, plenty of times. I would get whatever looked savable. And then I would get like a jar mustard and a jar of ketchup. And you can work wonders with making little soups. - Yeah, she was like struggling those first few years in Nashville. - The real money was in performing your songs, not just writing them. At the time, as she describes in the interview, she was trying to make it as a performer, but the label that she was hooked up with, Monument Records, just thought that her voice-- - My voice, the people that are familiar with the way I sing. My voice, it poked real high. - They just thought her voice was too high. ♪ I wasted my teeth ♪ ♪ When I cried ♪ - And it sounded like people thought it was cowly. So they thought I might have a better chance than rock and roll. (upbeat music) ♪ Oh, what do you think about love and baby ♪ - Yeah, keep in mind, this is the same year that the Beatles released Sergeant Pepper. So you can hear that the label is trying to kind of shove her that direction. ♪ That will you tell me ♪ - And it wasn't working out too well. - I've never had a pop here. I had a song out called Happy Hatchy Birthday, baby. The worst thing I'd had, and it wasn't even considered a hit at all. - But then right before she did this interview in 1967, in fact, I think it was the reason for the interview. - Her big break comes and she had a new single called Dumb Blonde. - Dumb Blonde. (upbeat music) ♪ Don't try to cry ♪ ♪ You wait out of this dumb ♪ ♪ Try to love ♪ ♪ Try to love ♪ - It's the story where she's in the first person. She's telling a man to shove it, rejecting the idea that because of how she looks, she is stupid. ♪ Dirty person, blind don't say I'm dumb ♪ ♪ 'Cause this dumb blonde ain't no one is fool ♪ - For someone who has arguably been underestimated her whole career, the lyrics are pretty prophetic. - Dumb Blonde, which was the biggest record I've ever had. I've not said it, it did real well for me. - Wasn't a huge hit, but a couple of things happened as a result of Dumb Blonde. She performs the song on TV. And I was around pretty then, even though I was tacky. - And shortly after that TV performance, (bell rings) she gets a call. From the King of Country, himself, Porter Wagner. - Yes. - And so from what I understand, you run over to his office with your guitar, thinking he must just want me to write a song for his female singer. - Yeah, he had a girl on his show named Norma Jean Beasley. - Pertinous Norma Jean. (upbeat music) - Who he almost always introduced, that exact same way. - She also was a big recording artist. (upbeat music) - Shake it legs, don't just lay. - And Norma Jean's whole vibe was very undolied. Beautiful, talented, but much more conservative, much more modest. - They had been working together for years. - Since the start of his show. - I had been sending songs to him and Norma Jean. - Since that come to Nashville for them to record. - So she says when she got to his office, she got out her guitar, sang him a couple of songs that she thought would be great for Norma Jean. - But. - He stops her. - Then he just told me that Norma Jean, she was leaving his show. - Why was she leaving? - Well, I don't know their personal story. I just know, well, the story at that time that she was marrying, she was gonna marry and move back to Oklahoma City. - The other version that sometimes told us that he and Norma Jean had had an affair and things had gotten complicated. - He just told me that Norma was leaving the show and what I'd be interested. - As he put it to her, would she be interested in being his new girl singer? - And then he quoted the price. - 60,000 a year, more money than she'd ever seen in her life? - Not said yes. - Before we go further, let me just offer a little bit of context. On the job that Tally was walking into at the time, there was no such thing as a female headliner. Women were on the shows as decorative objects, and here's a little song from our pretty little girl singer. - Not only that, according to Robert Orman, who has written a lot about this. - The executives on Music Row historically have perceived the country music audience to be dominantly female. Then as now, they perceive the audience to be female and they believe that women don't buy other women. - They thought women only bought male artists? - Correct, people that they could fantasize about. They thought that's what women consumed. - Obviously he says that is arguable at best. But that is what they thought. And so the job of the quote girl singer was to be sort of a surrogate for that adoring chorus of female fans that were out there that the executives believed were all fantasizing about Porter. That was Tally's new job. - And so we started, I started with him, I guess, and. ♪ Howdy, never howdy ♪ ♪ Get out and come right in ♪ ♪ Make a fool of me ♪ - Well, it wasn't '67, '66. - Actually it was on September 5th, 1967, and about four million people were watching. - How about it? Right now I want you to meet the little lady on our show. You know, Miss Norma Jean that's been with us for many, many years had to leave our show because we worked so much on the road and do so many TV shows. to kind of have a little time at home for a personal life. And I looked at a long time and thought of many, many folks that we all liked and thought that you would like. And here's a little gal that I know you're going to really learn to love because she's a fine singer. And one of the finest little gals that I've ever met, let's give her a great big welcome. She sings a song that she had a big hit on called "Dumb Blonde." She ain't no dumb blonde though. Pretty much Dolly Parton. Dolly makes her first appearance on the Porter Wagner show wearing a crew cut bright red dress red lipstick hair and a beehive. Don't try to cry. You're way out of this. Don't try to lie. And I think it's safe to say that first performance didn't go well. After she finishes the song. I defined "Dollar. Come on over a minute." That is mighty, mighty nice. Thank you a lot. And welcome to the show. Thank you. It's nice to be here. She kind of looks like she wants to run off the stage. We're going to really enjoy working with you. And you wrote so many fine songs and sings a pretty song. We'll look forward to having you around a long, long time. Well, I hope to be in thank you very much. So when I first started with Porter show, people were still calling for Norma Jean. They didn't like me. Dolly told me that I think her first road date with the Porter Wagner show. She came on stage and she got booed. Well. This is Ralph Emory, Country Music DJ, and Long Time Television Host. Yes. They booed. Dolly. It's true. When she came off stage, she was crying. It was like-- it was hard. Now it was so-- looks so different than her. My voice was so different. When Dolly first arrived in Nashville, that was the whole critique. [MUSIC PLAYING] God, she's a great writer. God, she's beautiful, but she sings so weird. She sounds mini-mousey. How can we capture that on record? How can we make that commercial? Because it was so different. Different? Especially from Norma Jean. When you love halfway. Who had a much lower richer voice. They didn't want the-- yeah, I mean, there was-- and Norma Jean had a huge follow. And it was like, where's Norma Jean? In fact, that first show, Dolly's first performance with Porter, after she sang the song "Dumb Blonde," will be right back in just a minute or so. And they cut to commercial. You can tell something happened. Over that commercial break, maybe the audience revolted. Not sure. But when they come back from break, and remember, these shows were live. Thank you very much for watching that message. And thank you for being here. Porter felt the need to speak directly to the studio audience. He's talking with Dolly Parton a while ago. You know, when we were talking about Miss Norma Jean being gone. You never find anyone to replace someone. It's someone that acts as a star in their own right. And she's a wonderful little gal. He basically says to the audience, in this sort of eternal way, I hear you. I see that you're upset. But no, we're doing this. Porter basically had to put his foot down with the fans and go, look, if she's good enough for me, she's good enough for you, and basically made them listen to Dolly. I sort of love him for that, despite everything. Yeah. Thank you, Don. So to deal with this backlash, Porter's first move was to shift the format of his show, rather than the usual thing of him doing a song and then having the female singer do a song. In order to establish me, because the people weren't responding to me that much, Dolly not going to do all, do it, since we've got a whole bunch of-- Porter. [MUSIC - "I'm going to go, with the boat on the road, well, I'll be not a force, but you are."] We started doing duets. We did a duet called "The Last Thing on My Mind" who shot right to the top. Everyone we talked to told us that from the very moment they started those duets, well, that was magic. It was like, Fred and Ginger, John and June. George and Mike wanted to kiss me goodbye. Tracy and Catherine Hapren, there's just to keep going with those kind of people who just clicked. We had a great blend in our voices. I believe we have arrived, coming into our love and happiness both seems so strong. And I love that sound. There are two types of harmonies in country and rock, according to Robert Orman. One is take a message to Mary. What I would call the Everly Brothers Type Harmony, which is close harmony, where the two voices are very close together. In part of what's cool about that style of duetting is that you can't tell the voices apart. The other type is the Porter Dolly type. Where they had very, very distinct ranges. Their voices are not close together at all. Do you sing melody? It's interesting. You're describing their singing style. It's perfectly matched for the content of their songs. Oh, yeah. Their dialogues. Male-female dialogues. In which there's some kind of tension between lovers. It's a little bit creepy to be honest. You know, he was old enough to be her dad. Almost exactly twice her age. She's at once sort of like, "So sweet countrywoman, you want to help me do it?" Motherly, patronizing, talking about being her lover in a song. Nonetheless, in terms of the task at hand, of introducing Dolly to a new audience. It worked. It worked. It didn't just work, it killed. We made history together. Now I want you to meet the beautiful little lady on our show and she gets more popular same like each week. Here's how it went out. As soon as the duets got going. That audience did reach out. They wrote letters. Thanks for all of the fine cards and letters and things that you have wrote to her and lots of letters. Saying, "I think we like her now." I know she appreciates it. And as soon as that started happening. Porter insisted that I be on RCA and then he did a whole day out of getting me on the RCA. He moved Dolly over to his label. They immediately go into the studio, record some duets. They record her second solo album. Which he produces. They begin to tour the country. Playing about 200 shows a year, doing live TV tapings and after each one. It was mandatory that they take their costumes off, get a cup of coffee and gather up in the control room and watch what they had just done. Almost as if they were like a game tape, you know, from a football game. He told me, you know, how much Dolly didn't want to hear herself or see herself in the beginning. I have never liked to hear myself talk. I've never liked to hear myself sing. I think. You've never liked to hear yourself sing? No. And he actually pushed the issue that, no, this is what we do. That's how you learn. He was great on camera. He had a great smile. He knew how to talk to that audience. I learned a lot. She says from those game tape sessions, she learned how to hold herself on stage, how to make eye contact with the camera. How to kind of communicate with an audience, even like how to smile when we were doing album covers or doing pictures. Now, as Dolly was learning the ropes, I think it's worth saying that country music around this time was undergoing a dramatic change. I mean, it started as this mostly Southern phenomenon, but during those years at Dolly and Porter were working together, there was a huge migration of people out of the rural south into the Northeast, Midwest, into urban areas, and they took country music with them. And they were getting bigger and bigger these days. In 1961, 80 radio stations across the nation would call country music stations. Well, today that number is over 1000. Point is, as Dolly was being introduced to the world, that world was expanding. And in fact, in 1967, '68, the country music industry was like, we're getting so big that we need our own award show. And in October of '68, at the second ever country music awards, Porter Wagner and Dolly went vocal group of the year. Two years later, they went in again, the next year, two, and by 1972, it's just clear that in this new kingdom of country music, they are the royal couple. And by the way, at every award they win, they walk up there together, his arm draped around her. He accepts the award. Thank you, everyone. Very much. This year, there were so many great do-it teams that Dolly doesn't speak. Thank you. God bless you. Producer Shimolyai asked Dolly about this. We're very quiet at first. How did that be quiet around Porter? Because Porter was a star. I'm not allowed to say a lot. I didn't think that it was my place to try to take within his show. It wasn't really something I would just stand out and do. That's just not, you didn't do that as a woman and you didn't do that as a professional person. And it was his show, not mine. 'Til I went out on my own, 'til I could say, 'Til I claimed and owned myself. - Now, speaking of claiming and owning oneself, (upbeat music) there are a million moments that you can point to where Dolly did that. But one, in particular, that came up a bunch of times in our interviews. Happened in 1970, Dolly and Porter had been together for three years. They'd released five albums of duets together. Porter had released eight solo albums and produced all four of her solo albums, most of which were those slow, mournful ballads that we talked about. - And one time we were on the bus. - This is Buck Trent, he played banjo in Porter's band. - On tour in Porter's to Dolly? You need to ride some tempo songs for the show. - As in, enough sad ass songs. - And just off the top of my head, some reason. - I'll see what I play, yeah. - I said, how about the new Skinner Blues? (upbeat music) They said, "Well, where may try that?" (upbeat music) So we get in a studio, Norma, I mean, Dolly, but just killing a song. ♪ We're thick mo ♪ ♪ And captain ♪ ♪ Good morning to you sir ♪ ♪ Hey, hey, yeah ♪ - Porter had the whip, I mean, a real whip in the studio and he's popping the whip. ♪ That hot your tube, but run ♪ ♪ Hey, hey ♪ - It is crooked, it is crooked. ♪ Good lady ♪ ♪ Hey ♪ ♪ Good, good, good ♪ - It's got one of the best rhythm tracks of all time. ♪ Lime, light, light, light ♪ - And it was a big hit. - First of all, Buck Trent is right. The song is Dolly's first top five hit. It got to number three, second. The song was just fire, it's just fire, it's so good. ♪ I can make any music ♪ - And third, many Dollyologists, like Jocelyn Neal, Professor of Music at the University of North Carolina, will tell you that this song marks a turning point. - The singles that she releases before Mule Skinner Blues are from the voice of Little Girls. They are fragile and they are all these perspectives of vulnerability. I mean, daddy come and get me. My man has put me in a mental institution, is not a position of social power. - But after Mule Skinner, she says, her songs are totally different. - We would make a process and then the rest as you get to telling the podcast you take. ♪ ♪ - We'll tell the rest of that history after the break. This is Dolly Barnes America, I'm Chad Abumaron. Let's pick back up with the story. - Let's sing a music. - Anything you want to it, this is your show. - Well, we're gonna do Mule War. - We talked about Mule Skinner Big Moment around this time. - Okay. - A couple things start to happen. - Well, I'm gonna get on it. ♪ Turn, park, and I'm gonna fly ♪ - Personality-wise. - Oh, no. - I got more gun up here. - I thought it was really out my show. - On the TV, you begin to see a different Dolly. Emerge, sort of a Dolly we know. - You better shave up, son. - And hold her up. - Not the, quote unquote, shy one. - Well, the whole part about being shy, I mean, I would, she's the kind of person that hits me that would have, you know, the minute she was born, she shook hands with the doctor assigned an autograph and started dancing for me. (laughing) - I was basically, you know, kind of holding back in the early days. - After Mule Skinner, she kind of stops doing that. The second thing that happens around this moment is that behind the scenes, Dolly is writing songs at a blistering pace. If you look at her, just go to geography 69, 70, 70, 172, it's just one song after another, after another. There's Joshua, her first number one, code of many colors, my blue tears, touch her woman, daddy was an old time preacher man. One of Porter's best songwriters, Mel Tillus, was quoted as saying, he couldn't keep up. Like he would submit one song and she would submit three. - I mean, we're going down the road on the bus and she's writing Joe Leane and I'll always love you in no time at all. - I remember her scribbling, she wrote one of her songs, I can't remember which one right now. One of my dad's dry cleaner, pick it. This is Deborah Wagner, Porter Wagner's daughter. - He grabbed that off of that, that runs down to where he had the plastic with the ticket on it for the dry cleaner, match box, candy bar wrapper, a napkins, a restaurant. I've seen her do, I saw her do that. - All these songs, all these songs. - Well, I was so excited and everybody was paying attention to me as a writer and that inspired me. So I wanted to really, really do more 'cause I saw that people were paying attention. But during that time, my husband, Carl and I had bought our first house and there was a Deane in a big fireplace and I remember I wrote Joe Leane and I will always love you. The same night when we found a tape, I don't know if it's the same night, but it's on the same cassette that we found. I thought that must have been a really good night. - Wow. - Yeah. So I just would sit for hours in that little room and write songs and play and-- - As she was telling me this, I was reminded of something that journalist Robert Orman had told us on the phone. - If she had been born in a different era, she's Mozart. She was touched by something. - Love is like a butterfly wrote during that same period of time as well. - All right, let's go to 1973. (laughing) - Okay. - October 31st of that year. - I know you write all kinds of songs and all types of songs and I think this is possibly the most different tune and sort of the different sound of any of the songs that you've ever written. - Daly, debut's a new song on the Puerto Agnieszão. - Well, it is kind of different. It kind of makes you think of an old folk song. This kind of got a little heavier up to date beat. - I think you really like this. Listen close to it is called Joe Leane. (upbeat music) ♪ Joe Leane, Joe Leane ♪ ♪ Joe Leane, Joe Leane ♪ ♪ I'm begging of you please don't take my man ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ Joe Leane, Bean Bean Bean Bean Bean Bean Bean Bean ♪ - Starting in 1973 with Joe Leane. ♪ Joe Leane, Bean Bean Bean Bean Bean Bean Bean ♪ Daly would churn out four consecutive number ones in roughly a year. ♪ I'm being being being being being being ♪ - During that time, Porter's solo stuff was hovering around the forties. - You have to appreciate also the threat to his ego that she represented by this point because at this period in time, his era on the charts, his time was getting to be up. - I started getting real big. - Her star was shooting and his was sinking. And Porter was having a lot of problems with that. - Daly told me that when it came time for them to record Joe Leane in the studio, Porter wouldn't let her play the guitar. - He wanted to impress the musicians with that lick. (upbeat music) And so I remember Porter trying to teach it to the guitar players on that session and it was not coming out right at all. And I remember I was just getting more of set and more of set. So I remember just getting the guitar from Porter and said, "Let me just show them the lick." - You writing your autobiography that the bigger you got, the more threatened he got. - Yeah, well, that's natural because it was his show. When it got to where I was wanting to have other producers, I wanted to expand. I wanted to have crossover records and I wanted to have management where I could do other, and I told him, I said, "If you'll let me, I can stay in the show. If you'll let me have my own things." I can still work within the show. Let me get a manager and a producer to do some other things outside of what we're doing. I'm not trying to take anything from you or me. I'm just wanting to expand. If I can do some things, if you'll let me do some stuff within the show, we can still, you know, salvage this and it'll just make your show bigger and it'll make us bigger and better. He couldn't handle it though. And so, and I understand that. So, why would you understand that? Well, I can't speak for him. Yeah. I'm speaking for me. You're not talking to Porter, you're talking to me. Of course, but it's the understanding that I guess I'm asking a question about. This is a guy. You see it in the videos too. He's got his arm around you. There's a power thing happening for sure. Well, it's more complicated than that. It's just, I mean, just think about it. He had had this show for years. He didn't need me to have his hit show. He wasn't expecting me to be all that I was either. When he hired me as a singer, he was just hiring what he thought was a right-putty little girl. But I was a serious writer. He didn't know that. I was a serious entertainer. He didn't know that. I mean, he didn't know how many dreams I had. It was just one of those relationships where you hated them one day, you loved them the next and it just got so intermingled and so wotted up that you don't even know what your real feelings were. I don't know, it was almost, it was just crazy. It was like a marriage of a sort. You couldn't even begin to describe it all. Throughout the years people have speculated that there might have been more going on between them behind the scenes. Well, probably, probably. You never knew much, but probably. Even members of the band wondered, "Is Porter running around with Dolly or is he having an affair with Dolly Parking?" This is Porter on the Ralph Emory Show. "Well, would you care to speak to that?" "Ha ha ha!" "There's so many answers to that Ralph. You know really there's probably about as many answers as there are people asking questions about that." Any relationship is like a house with an upstairs, it's got two stories. And this is how Dolly addressed those rumors in her autobiography. "I know that everybody that knows anything about me and Porter would like to know the true story of what happened to us. Nobody would like to know that more than me and Porter." In any case, this next bar, this is the point in the story where you can tell it several different ways. For writer Sarah Smarsh. "It sounds very much like an abusive relationship." This is a classic abuse story. She says, "If you scroll through their YouTube performances from 1973 to 1974, this is when Dolly and Porter have been working together for about seven years. You see these moments." "There's this moment where she's got her guitar. He's going to play on their next duet. So he's sort of suggesting like, "You want a bit of your guitar away?" "Why don't you drop your guitar because now as the man, I'm going to be the one strumming the strings." And she's like, "I'll just hang on to it." "I'll just hold on to it." "I need a security blanket." "Like, nope, I'm good. You son of a bitch." Sarah points to another moment, same episode, Porter's doing an intro Dolly's off screen, "She probably knows me, she sort of butts in with a joke." "Not a little bit, she tells her to shut up, and his face definitely falls for a moment. Micro expression, rage." "We're back again." "Me and my side kick here. She just kicked me on the side." "Not yet, but I think I'll win after that." "If you ever hit me and I find it out, Dolly Park, you'll be in trouble." "Just makes these casual jokes about physically harming her." "I oughta box you a joke." "Oh, you'd hit your mama before you hit me." And that reminded me of the statistics that tell us that when a woman is about to leave an abusive relationship, that is when violence escalates. "Is that you guys doing a stick or is that actual hostility?" "I'll wait too many things to ever untangle all of it." "You and me cannot agree cause I love the fightin' time." Now to be clear, I don't think there's anything here that would suggest actual physical abuse happened, but clearly they went at each other in every other way. "We just did not, we just went like that. I was so stubborn, and he's so definite in who he is." "Well, the thing about Porter, and this is where you hit humanity, is that the times, and so many country singers had the pretty little girl singer on their show around Nashville, and they were kind of Lord and Master and whatever they say went." "If you work for me, you're gonna do what I say or you're not gonna work for." "Right?" This is Porter being interviewed by Herb Setson on his show Setson Country. "I'm not hiring an advisor to come in." "It's right. I'm hiring someone to work for me. I sign the check. I pay them." "Cause I love Dollar. She's a beautiful lady in every respect. But it don't matter if my mama is working on my show, my mama's gonna do what Porter says." And there was no questions asked. "Well, anybody that knows anything about Her knows that that ain't how it works with Her." He would say, "This is my damn show. I know, but this is my damn life. And we're not talkin' about the show. I'm talkin' about my life. I'm talkin' about my future. I can't stay here as the girl singer forever. I want an individual career. I am my own self. I didn't come to Nashville to be just part of a duet and to be a girl singer in somebody's group. I want my own band. I want my own show. I want my own dreams. I want my own. But it was like, "Well, I made you." And I said, "Well, yeah, you've made me mad again. You've made me a lot of things." And I'm not taking anything from you, I would say. I appreciate everything you've done, but I never promised you forever. And we just were not happy. Either of us were not happy. [Music] Was there a breaking point that you can recall? Yeah, I just finally just thought I'm gonna break myself if I don't go, because all we were doin' was fighting. And it just wasn't workin'. I couldn't even, I couldn't think. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. And he wasn't happy either. And I thought, "This is just insane. We've got to do something." So that's when I went in and said, "You know, I thought, well, he's not gonna listen. We'd thought and I'd go home crying." And so that's when I wrote "I Will Love You" and went back to sing it. The story goes, as every Dalley fan knows, she walked right into his office, told them to sit down, and she just sang it to him. [Music] If I should stay, I would only be in your way. So I go, but I know, I'll think of you each step of the way. And I will always love you. [Music] And so he sat in the chair and he started crying. And then he said, "Well, that's the best song you ever wrote." I said, "Well, you inspired it." He said, "Well, I guess you can go if I can produce the record." I said, "Okay, you can." My father, she had to stand up to him like a lot of us women do to get our way. She left an influence on me to speak your mind. And if you're heartened, let others know. And if you're loving, let them know that too. Deborah Wagner says she was inspired by what Dolly did, even though it was her father on the other end of it. And it's interesting to consider that this was a moment in America when the divorce rate was doubling. When you had all of these no fault divorce laws popping up all around the country, this was a moment when women could finally leave. She describes it as like, I mean, honestly, I was previously married. And when I initiated a divorce, the way that she talks about that moment, again, this is not to suggest they had a romantic relationship, but that there was some sort of like this, like almost spiritual tether between them that she was deciding for her own survival. She was going to leave. And she describes it in terms that I was like, "Oh, I remember that feeling." This is from her autobiography. "I'm not a long hard fight, but I see a brand new day dawning. I've been looking for the sunshine. I ain't seen it in so long. Everything is going to work out just fine. Everything is going to be all right. It's been all wrong." I can see the light of a clear blue morning. And I swear to you, all my life, as I said that, the sky cleared up, it stopped raining, the sun came out and before I got home, I had completely written the song called "Light of a Clear Blue Morning." It was like God's saying, "Okay, you're free to go now, so just make the most of it." And that was my first song, my freedom. It's amazing to me that even in that moment, it becomes the song almost immediately. Well, that's how I do think. That's how I do with my heart. As reporter, he went and spent six weeks sitting by a lake by himself. Well, I think when Dali left, and you know, at so many levels, I have no doubt in my mind that Dali was a love of Porter's life. She's irreplaceable. Don Warden was irreplaceable. Don Warden, by the way, was Porter's right-hand man. He was my dad's best friend. He was the man in the music business. My dad trusted the very most. He would also even go with Dali. Key musician in the band named Buck Trent, who was kind of the band leader. He left and went with Roy Clark's show. And so Porter was just kind of capsized after all those years of being the king. And I think his ego was bruised. I think his heart was broke. So he basically then went on a public's brief of character, deaf and deaf. to me, Donald Punt is the kind of person that I would never trust with anything of mine. I mean her family, her own blood. She would turn her back on to help her show. Telling anyone who would listen that Dolly Punt was a horrible person who he wouldn't trust further than he could throw. I don't care about talking about it because most people would think I'm bitter. You know, I'm not bitter at her at all. Dolly wants to do everything that is possible for her, but she lives in a very land. Anyhow, I left and poor sued me for a million dollars. He sued you for a million dollars. Because we didn't really, I didn't. He sued me because of what I had done to his show. I don't remember exactly what all the legalities were. But he thought he was my manager. He was suing me for like future royalties. You know, because I had signed, I don't even know what all I was young and silly. Porter and court would claim that Dolly was the reason he canceled his row show. He would claim, and this is true, that they had signed a contract saying that if she left his show, he was entitled to a percentage of her earnings. That if she left his show, he was entitled to manage her for five years. And that during that time, she couldn't enter into any contract concerning her musical career without his written approval. He claimed that she was now trying to minimize his stake in their production company that they own together. In fact, he would claim in court that Dolly broke into the offices of that production company, stole 130 demos of music. These were demos that mostly she had written, but she stole them. And now she was off making albums with some of those songs, and he was entitled to some of that money. And so he sued me. Dolly decided to settle. I didn't have a million dollars took me your spend back. Wow. He just did that out of anger, though, I think. She doesn't like the dwell on this particular chapter, and neither apparently does anyone else in Nashville. I think everybody in this town understands the art of a good hillbilly divorce. So you don't pick sides, you love everybody and just listen. That was always been, but I know that it must have been awful for both of them. But as years went by, we made up. Later he said, "That's the worst thing I ever done. I'm so sorry I did that. He told me that." Wow. He said, "I just was, you know, hurt and angry." What I find most amazing about the story is how it ends. Like we've all seen so many bad divorces, right? And the good thing about a divorce is that unhappy people can walk away from an unhappy thing. But so often that's not what happens. People get stuck in the ugly part. But not here. Dolly pays him the million dollars over time. Then in 1981 Porter gets dropped from his label RCA, and then Dolly hears that he's made some bad investments. And the IRS has come after him saying that he owes him half a million dollars. He did fall on hard times and he needed the money. And at that time I had money. And so he, Porter had started writing after I was writing a lot. Porter had never written before. And so he started writing. He wrote some really good songs too. And so after he was having some hard times, I thought, "Well, a good way for me to do that is just to buy." The publishing company. So I bought it. And then I just gave it back to him because I wanted his kids to have it. I didn't want it. Wow. But that was my gift. One of my gifts for thanking him too. Because see, I never knew. How do you ever know how to thank somebody or what you owe somebody? Because who knows? Had it not been for Porter, I may not be sitting right here in this chair right now. Because that was, you know, I'd like to believe I would have made it. But because I felt bad that I had to go, but I knew I had to go, or I was stifled, and by that time I would just, if I'd have stayed forever, I might have missed my chance. And God was telling me to go. That spirit of mine was saying, "Go, you've got to go, you've got to go." At that time, it's not like putting flowers on me. It was the least that I could do. I felt like it was, all right, that was to me the thing to do. And so I was glad to do it. It made me feel better about everything else. I have a theory that one of the reasons that you can have the crazy, broad appeal that you have into so many different communities that normally hate each other is because of those acts of forgiveness. Does that vibe with you? Yeah, that forgiveness is all there is. Porter Wagner died on October 28, 2007 in a hospice facility in Nashville. And I do know for a fact, and this tells it all right here, that one of the last people he saw on this earth was a girl named Dolly. And she was there holding his hand by his bed and giving him water. When you saw him a few hours before he died, what did you speak about? Well, I asked everybody to go out and I just talked to him. My staff Porter was not, I knew he could hear me, but he was not able to talk to me. But I could tell and he could touch my hand and squeeze a little bit. And I just told him that I loved him and I appreciated him. And I said, I was sorry for all the things we had been through. And I was so happy that we had become friends again, and that I would always remember and treasure him. You know, we had a special bond and I was happy that I was there. [Music] Dolly Parton's America was produced and written and edited by me. And Shima Oliai brought to you by Awesome Audio. That's OSM Audio and WNYC Studios. We had production help from W. Harry Fortuna, original music from Nathan Fake, Courtney Hartman, Steph Jenkins, Stephanie Coleman. Thanks to the folks at Sony Music, the Country Music Association, the team at the Country Music Hall of Fame, Herb Sutson, Harry Willen from the documentary "National Sound" and the Everett Corbin collection at the Center for Popular Music. Special thanks to Peter at Harper Collins, Lynn Sacco, Danny Nizell, David Dotson, Sam Haskell, Teresa Hughes, Pat Walters, Louis Lomilla, Susie Leckonberg, and Soren Wheeler. And as always, thank you to my dad, more from him, come soon. We have partnered with Apple Music to bring you companion playlists to each of the episodes. We're updating it every week. You can find that at dollypartonsamerica.org. Before we go, one more word on that song. It has been called "The Love Song of the Century." You know, you see this song being performed on. [Music] Idol in the voice and all this. You're just one of the go-to songs. [Music] If somebody performs the song even half decently, [Music] the crowd goes crazy. Because when it gets to that big part, [Music] and if the singer can just even barely make that big part, they're going to get a round of applause. [Music] We call it the boom and I moment. [Music] Boom and I, it's the boom and I moment, right? This is David Foster. He is one of the main reasons that I will always love you. Became the love song of the century. I was the lucky guy that got to produce I will always love you for Whitney Houston in the bodyguard. He spoke with producer Shimole I. Yes. She's going to take us out with this brief story of an encounter So here's how it went down. [Music] It's 1991. They're making the movie. I've been watching you all night from across the world. Why don't you go back there and keep watching? That's Kevin Costner. He and Whitney Houston star in the movie, as I'm sure you know, Kevin Costner actually produced the movie. [Music] So he asked David to jump on board to create the soundtrack. So David had to write all these songs for different scenes for Whitney to sing. But the finale song had not been decided. So they do a search. One other song comes up, they record it, it doesn't quite work. They find another song, it's not nothing's working. It's actually Kevin Costner. The hero that he is calls of David Costner and goes, "David, I have an idea." Yeah. Side note, do you, are you still in contact with Kevin Costner by any chance? It's funny that you should say that because I called him yesterday. Oh no way. You know, Kevin was so musical. He has a band, he plays, he sings. He loves country music, he loves country rock. Anyway, he calls David and he says, "You know that scene we're going to do at the end of the movie, the big scene with Whitney? I think I have the perfect song." He did, he said, "I've got it. I want to do this song. I will always love you." And you'll do the big version at the end, and it'll be great. And I think that I pretended that I knew the song, but I'd never heard that song before. So I sent somebody down to the record store in Malibu. And the only version they could find was Linda Rock's Sets Version. 1975. ♪ If I should stay ♪ - I knew immediately that I could kill this song. And when you see it in the movie with the, she's getting on the plane and then she stops and she comes back out and hugs 'em and you know they're in love, but they're never gonna be together. - Oh, such a good scene. Anyway, Whitney Kevin David, they go to shoot the scene. - We were recording the song live because the director wanted that live feeling. - Is it that scene where Whitney's on stage in that hotel? - Yes. - And at one point did you tell Dolly that you're gonna do her song? - I clearly remember going back to my room. - Back to his hotel room, he calls Dolly. He's all excited. - And she was like, "Oh, that's great news. I love Whitney, you know?" She's like, "I can't wait to hear her sing that part, you know, the third verse." And I'm going like, "Third verse." There's no third verse in this song. - Now the third verse, it's the one where she talks. - I hope live treats you kind, directly to Porter. And I hope that you have all that you ever dreamed of. - Dolly was like, "No, you have to do the third verse. The third verse has everything in it. It's the rap of the whole song. It's the most meaningful lyric." - Oh no. - Yeah, Blender Ronset had not done the third verse. I gotta go back and listen to that Blender Ronset version and make sure that I'm right. Can you play it? - Yeah, I think I can play it. - I mean, like, like, move in like one minute. - Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm just giving this ad. - You don't pay for your YouTube? - I'm gonna play it for both of us. Oh, I don't hear the third one. - They're playing it instrumentally. - Oh yeah, you are so right, David. - Now what happens? A chorus comes in? - Yeah. - Now a chorus. No third verse. - So he's like, "Damn it, Linda!" Yes, I've to go in with Dolly, runs back to where they're shooting the scene and says, "Guys, we gotta do the third verse, the porter verse." You just like gave Whitney the lyrics, we gotta do this third verse. - We had to go back in and record it again. ♪ And I wish to you, John ♪ - That's my favorite part of the song. ♪ John ♪ - Did you have any idea of the worldwide impact that it's still the number one recorded song by a female artist of all time? - No, in fact, I didn't even know that stat, but I was standing there when she was singing it and her mom walked over to me. She said, "You're witnessing greatness right now." ♪ And I ♪ - Then she walked away. ♪ We'll always love you ♪ ♪ We'll always love you ♪ - You know how you talked about how Dolly paid a million dollars to porter? - Mm-hmm. - In one year of the release of this song, she reportedly made three times that. - And she thanked me more than once, making jokes about it, bought me my house here and got my this there. ♪ Bit of sweet memories ♪ - Dolly, if you're listening to this, this is David Foster. Please make the time to have lunch with me sometime. (soft music) - On the next episode of Dolly Partens America. - Ooh, my mom's parents. - No, are you gonna take us? - Don't wanna go. - Oh my God, yes! - Oh my God, fire! - We pilgrimage to Dollywood and end up in a Tennessee mountain time warp.