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Artist News
Dolly Parton retires from touring
By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 28 October 2022
Dolly Parton has announced that she has retired from full-on touring, saying that she wants to spend more time with her husband as they get older.
“I do not think I will ever tour again, but I do know I’ll do special shows here and there, now and then”, she tells Pollstar. “Maybe do a long weekend of shows, or just a few shows at a festival. But I have no intention of going on a full-blown tour anymore. I’ve done that my whole life, and it takes so much time and energy”.
“I like to stay a little closer to home with my husband”, she goes on. “We’re getting older now, and I don’t want to be gone for four or five weeks at a time. Something could happen. I would not feel right about that, if I were gone and somebody needed me. Or I would feel bad if I had to leave a tour if somebody got sick at home and needed me and then I had to walk out on the fans”.
She added that she feels that there are other ways beyond touring to stay connected to fans these days, saying: “I don’t ever feel separated from my fans because in this high-tech world, you can be right with them. You can do special shows in special ways. I will be doing some of that. But you’ve got to work for weeks to work up a great new show, a new tour they haven’t seen”.
“It takes months to actually plan a tour, as far as booking dates and all that”, she continues. “Then you’ve got to be gone for all that time, too. It’s more involved than people have any idea. You really need a year, and certainly six months, to plan a great tour, just preparing to get ready to go hit the road. So you can’t just go out and do a few shows, you really have to commit to doing enough shows to make all that time and effort pay off”.
As for her favourite show of her career, she picked Glastonbury in 2014, saying: “I was scared to death to do that show! I didn’t think that was really my audience because I do a lot of talking, I do a lot of songs that tell stories and I know they love to go to have a big time! I thought they just wanted the music to just go steady with no let-up; but when I did it, I was absolutely amazed. When I was talking and telling the stories and singing the songs that I thought they would not be interested in, they were all standing on their feet”.
“They were so respectful and it was such a huge success”, she continues. “So many people came, that I was really adored and felt honoured and emotional about that whole thing. You do remember things that stand out like that. They did know who I was. And I thought, these people are not going to be that familiar with my music because, you know, it’s country and all that. But they were! That’s as close as I’ve felt to being a rock star, was at that Glastonbury Festival”.
Parton, of course, tried to have herself removed from the nominations for this year’s Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame inductions because she didn’t feel she had done enough to deserve being called a rock star. But the Hall Of Fame ignored that request, maybe remembering the Glastonbury set.
