Don Henley Remembers Working With Dolly Parton

Don Henley didn't know Dolly Parton very well, but he recalled working with her very fondly in an interview with Taste of Country in 2015.

The Eagles maestro released a country album titled Cass County in 2015, and Parton sang a duet with him on a track titled "When I Stop Dreaming."

"That was one of the high points of working on this album, is working with her," he recalled.

"I'd only met her once before, very briefly, and we got in touch with her because I knew that she was the only one that could make this song work with me. And to my great pleasure and joy, she said, 'Yeah, I'll do it, but you'll have to come to Nashville.' I said, 'Well, I'm already in Nashville,'" he said with a laugh.

"So we settled on a date, and she came down to the studio dressed to the nines, looking great."

Parton went above and beyond, as Henley recalled.

"She came in, and she listened to the song for a minute, and she said, 'I know this song.' I said, 'I figured you did,' and she said, 'Me and Porter [Wagoner] used to do this song. I know it well.'

"So she went out to the microphone, she sang it a couple of times, and she came back into the control room, and she said, 'You know, the key is a little high for me.' I said, 'I'm sorry, that's the key we've got it recorded in,' and she goes, 'Well, then I guess I'll just have to rare back and get it,' he said with another laugh. "And she did, about two takes later.

"I love her voice up in that register, where she has to strain a little bit and it gets that little hoarseness in it. It's really sexy," he said, laughing again.

"It's really hot. And she just killed it. And then she was gone. Me and my production team just stood there in silence for a while, saying, 'What just happened here?' It's like somebody came in and sprinkled pixie dust in the studio, and then left.

"All kidding aside, I think she's a national treasure," Henley said.

"I think she is one of the last really authentic country music singers that we have today. There is so much in that voice. She's a petite little person, but when she opens her mouth to sing and that voice comes out, you hear her region of America, and you hear the suffering and the hardship, and you also hear the love and the compassion. There are so many colors and textures and meanings encompassed in that voice. It's just all there."