Porter Wagoner was a huge country music star in the 1950s and '60s. He had a syndicated TV show called The Porter Wagoner Show. In 1967, he hired a "pretty little lady" from East Tennessee named Dolly Parton to be his sidekick for the show. They recorded a string of hit duets. Parton was grateful, but she was more than window dressing.
Appearing on The Porter Wagoner Show was Parton’s big break. But, after several years of working together, Wagoner and Parton’s relationship became acrimonious. Parton, whose star was rising, felt stifled by Wagoner’s terms. She first tried to bargain with her boss, suggesting she could stay and work for him if she could also make her own records, perform solo, and act independently. “I’m not trying to take anything from you or me,” she recalls telling him, as she talks to Abumrad about her and Wagoner’s complicated relationship. With some cooperation, they could both gain from her having more freedom as an artist. Wagoner, however, would not budge.
The struggle between Parton's ambitions and Wagoner's control festered for years. Parton wrote a song about her complicated feelings called "I Will Always Love You," which was a hit in three different decades. Read how Parton's tensions with Wagoner led to her biggest hit at Quartz. -via Digg
(Image credit: Moeller Talent, Inc.)
