Dolly Parton has been, is, and always will be a global superstar.
She’s one of the few country music singers that’s transcended to that level of popularity, and though she’s been in the spotlight for decades, Dolly has never tired of it. Every story you hear about the living legend always highlights how nice and caring she truly is.
Even when she went to Ireland on vacation back in what’s believed to be 1990 (or sometimes in the early 90’s), Dolly didn’t shy away from providing a memorable moment for some fans. As the story goes, she walked into a local Irish pub – Páidí Ó Sé’s – and the guitar player that was playing instantly recognized her. He apparently let Parton know that he knew one of her songs, and inquired about having her sing along if he played it.
Dolly, being the angel that she is, was all for it. She first introduced herself and the song she was going to sing for the crowd that had gathered inside the pub:
“Well, hello… and welcome to Ireland. My name is Dolly and I’m on vacation. I was not going to sing tonight. I was going to be entertained. He says he knows my song ‘Coat Of Many Colors’ and he asked me to sing it.
We don’t know how this is going to sound because this is a first for both of us, but this is a song I wrote and it’s a true story from my own life and I’m sure a lot of you folks can relate to it.”
What followed was a ridiculously good impromptu performance of Dolly’s 1971 hit “Coat of Many Colors.” And the guy held up his end of the deal and played respectable guitar throughout, though he did forget the words when Dolly walked over to have him join in on the singing later on in the song.
In his defense, we’d all probably get a little flustered singing next to Dolly Parton:
P.S. – If you stuck around and scrolled this far, I couldn’t help but notice the poster of Larry Bird that’s right behind Dolly for most of her performance. Apparently the Irish appreciate good, fundamental basketball. After all, that video is from the 90’s, and the only basketball player that was bigger than Bird in the late 80’s and early 90’s was Michael Jordan.
There’s probably some sort of Boston Celtics – Luck of the Irish connection there too…