Before Dolly Parton was, well, Dolly Parton, she was a young singer-songwriter getting her start on The Porter Wagoner Show. The television program would grow to become one of the longest-running shows in country music television history. According to Parton, the work environment, unfortunately, wasn't always the best. She opened up about her experiences with the host, Porter Wagoner, in her new book, Star of the Show: My Life on Stage.
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Parton first made appearances on the show at 21, when she was given a starting salary of around $60,000. She would later go on to tour with Porter's band, the Wagonmasters, even as she started to experience her own personal success. As time went on, she felt that she wasn't being compensated enough, especially as her name gained popularity.
"Porter made a lot of money as our stars rose, and he shared some of the wealth," Parton shares. "The Wagonmasters all got bonus checks now and again, and Porter showered me with gifts. He gave me necklaces, rings, and a Cadillac, and those presents got a lot of attention in the media."
She then reveals, "But my paycheck never changed through all of that. I kept asking for a raise and never got one. He would buy me all these things and say, 'Consider that your raise.'"
"Little things like that caused us to start having a lot of problems," Parton writes. "I was making my way as an artist, and he was already an established one. It was his show, but I was trying to grow in the business and grow as an artist myself." Dolly Parton would eventually leave Porter's show in 1974, after seven years of doing business with him. The pair didn't quite end things on good terms, but Parton's leaving would lead to much other success down the line.
Dolly Parton Wrote "I Will Always Love You" for Porter Wagoner
Of her partnership with Porter, Parton has often described their dynamic as a "love-hate" one, especially when she started asking for higher pay. Eventually, the two entertainers would be on good terms again, but it would take a few years. Upon deciding to leave the partnership, Parton recalled having a difficult time approaching that conversation with Wagoner. It was her mixed feelings at the time that inspired her song, "I Will Always Love You".
She shared with The Tennessean, "I thought, 'How am I going to make him understand how much I appreciate everything, but that I have to go?' So I went home and I thought, 'Well, what do you do best? You write songs.' So I sat down and I wrote this song." Parton would later perform the ballad at the Opry in 2007, and in the crowd would sit an emotional Porter Wagoner.
"It was the most emotional night that I've ever spent at the Opry in my whole life," Wagoner shared of the evening. "She meant it for me and wrote it for me, she said. That's a wonderful thing that she stood there and sang it for the whole world to see. And the evening was unbelievable."
"I Will Always Love You" would eventually be covered by Whitney Houston, who would take the track to new heights, giving it 14 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Photo By: Getty / Katherine Bomboy
