Remember When Dolly Parton Released a Rock Album in 2023?

By 2023, Dolly Parton had done almost everything. A member of the Grand Ole Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame, Parton had already become one of the greatest country music artists of all time. But when she found out she was going to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, an invitation she initially declined, Parton decided to do something she had never done before: release an album of rock songs. The end result was Rockstar, a massive project featuring some of the genre’s biggest stars.

Rockstar includes some of rock music’s most noteworthy hits, like Journey’s “Open Arms”, “Purple Rain” by Prince, “Baby, I Love Your Way” by Peter Frampton, and several others. Parton is joined on the record by an eclectic list of rock stars, including Debbie Harry, Elton John, Melissa Etheridge, Pat Benatar, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and several more.

Parton covered several rock songs for Rockstar. But she also wrote some new songs for the record, including “World On Fire”, her first single from Rockstar. After dozens of hits, including several crossover ones, “World On Fire” became Parton’s first song to hit No. 1 on the rock chart. Other singles from Rockstar include “Magic Man”, “Bygones”, “We Are The Champions” with “We Will Rock You”, “Let It Be”, “What’s Up”, and “Wrecking Ball”.

Parton performed “World On Fire” at the 2023 ACM Awards.

What Dolly Parton Says About Recording a Rock Album

Parton was inspired to release Rockstar after accepting her invitation to become a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. But she also wanted to do it for her husband, Carl Dean. It was Dean who was a big lover of rock and roll throughout their marriage.

“I wanted it to be really good for him,” Parton reveals on Audacy Check In with Katie Neal. She adds that she had a “desire for it to be really great.”

“I think it made me try extra hard,” she continues. “I wanted it to be something he would think is good. When I played it for him, he said, ‘That was pretty good.’ So, for him to say that would be like somebody else jumping up and down and saying, ‘That’s great!’”

In a separate interview, Parton explained how hard she worked to make Rockstar a success.

“My husband Carl is a big rock fan,” Parton tells Louder. “I’ve heard so many of the great rock songs over the years, because that’s the only thing he ever plays. … I had some personal favorites as well. I also had to pick songs that I thought I could sing well, that I thought I could do justice to. Or at least to try to be as impressive as I could, because I wanted the rock field to be proud of me.”

Rockstar became Parton’s final full-length album before she passed away in 2026.

Photo by Mike Marsland/WireImage