Carl Dean Rarely Commented On Dolly Parton's Music, But He Hated This Cover Idea

Carl Dean Rarely Commented On Dolly Parton's Music, But He Hated This Cover Idea

Carl Dean was married to arguably country music's biggest icon, but he wasn't exactly a fan of the genre. By all accounts, Dolly Parton and her husband were soulmates until the end, but they had different tastes in music. Dean, an asphalt-paving business owner and lover of the farm lifestyle, preferred rock 'n' roll over country. When Parton revealed that she intended to do a bluegrass cover of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" in 2002, her husband wasn't on board. "He said, 'I don't think you should do that,' and I said, 'Well, why?' And he said, 'Because it's a damn legend. It's a classic,'" she told Absolute Radio in 2023.

In news that surprises no one, she did it anyway. And Dean was as unimpressed as he suspected he would be. "He said, 'Are you sure that's 'Stairway to Heaven' or 'Stairwell to Hell'?" she laughed. Later, Parton revealed that Dean's reaction to the cover, which was featured on her "Halos & Horns" studio album, was also rooted in love. "He was kind of concerned about me doing it. He said: 'I don't know if you need to mess with that, because I think you'll get a lot of criticism,'"...