Forty-three years ago, Dolly Parton stood on the Emmy stage and sang a song she wrote about her daddy and the mountains that raised her. On Monday night, her friend brought it back to the same stage.
Reba McEntire performed “Appalachian Memories” during the In Memoriam segment at the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards, held Monday, September 14, at the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles. She sang it with a full orchestral arrangement, less than a month after Parton died in Nashville at 80.
Before McEntire took the stage, the broadcast aired archival footage from the 1983 ceremony, in which Parton introduced the song herself. She told the audience that the song touched her deeply and mattered to her more than most things she had written. Then she added the line that only Dolly could land at an awards show.
“If you don’t like it, if you don’t mind, I would rather not hear about it later.”
McEntire got through the performance. At the end, her composure gave way.
“I love you, Dolly. So much.”
The Song Was Always About Her Father and Those Mountains
“Appalachian Memories” came out in 1983 on Burlap and Satin, Parton’s twenty-fifth solo studio album. She wrote it and recorded it herself.
The song explores home, family, and leaving the hills, drawing on her father‘s experiences and her own connection to the Smoky Mountains. Parton grew up the fourth of twelve children in a one-room cabin in Locust Ridge, Tennessee, and she never wrote about that upbringing with any embarrassment.
Choosing it for the Emmys tribute was a deliberate move. Parton had bigger hits and more famous songs. “Jolene” and “9 to 5” would have filled the room. Instead, the producers picked the one she brought to that 1983 ceremony herself, the one about where she came from.
Reba and Dolly Met at the Opry in 1977
The two of them go back nearly fifty years.
They first met at the Grand Ole Opry in 1977, on the night McEntire made her debut at the venue. She has told the story in a MasterClass session on country music, describing how things went sideways before she even got on stage.
For You
They stayed close from there. In 2021, they recorded a new version of McEntire’s hit “Does He Love You” together, and Parton guest-starred on McEntire’s sitcom during its run. Over five decades, the friendship remained intact through every shift the industry threw at them.
When Parton’s family announced her death on August 25, McEntire was among the first to say something publicly.
“There will never ever be another you,” she wrote on Instagram, alongside a gallery of photos of the two of them. “We will remember and cherish every memory and every note you ever played and sang.”
She closed that post with a line that sounds exactly like a woman who knew her friend well.
“She’s gonna have a blast in heaven singing all her favorite songs with all her family and friends who have gone on before her.”
Three weeks after writing those words, McEntire had to sing about Appalachia in front of a theater full of people. At the same time, a video of Dolly played behind her.
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She made it to the last note before she said the quiet part out loud.
Dolly Parton stood on that stage in 1983 and asked a room full of Hollywood not to tell her if they disliked her song about home. On Monday night, the same song filled the same room, and the woman singing it could barely finish her sentence.
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