One of Dolly Parton’s biggest hits was inspired, in part, by her late husband, Carl Thomas Dean.
The country music icon said her 1973 smash hit “Jolene,” which went to the top of Billboard’s country music chart, came about thanks to a bank teller who had a little thing for Dean.
“She got this terrible crush on my husband,” Parton told NPR in 2008.
“And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention. It was kind of like a running joke between us when I was saying, ‘Hell, you’re spending a lot of time at the bank. I don’t believe we’ve got that kind of money.’ So it’s really an innocent song all around, but sounds like a dreadful one.”
Parton, who also said she came up with the name of the song after meeting a young fan at a concert, announced on Instagram on March 3 that Dean had died at the age of 82. The couple were married for nearly 60 years.
“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together. Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy,” the 10-time Grammy winner wrote, while adding her husband died in Nashville and “will be laid to rest in a private ceremony.”
Dean, who worked in the asphalt industry, met Parton at a laundromat in 1964. They married two years later in Georgia when they were both in their early 20s. While Parton has enjoyed immense fame throughout her career, Dean was not often seen, remaining out of the public eye.
“He went to one thing with me early on, when we first married, to a BMI Song of the Year,” she said on Apple’s “What Would Dolly Do? Radio” in 2023. “And he came out there, taking off his tuxedo, his tie and all that, and said, ‘Don’t ever ask me to go to another one of these damn things, because I ain’t going.’ So I never asked him, and he never did.”
The couple never had children, and Parton has spoken about how much Dean meant to her in her life.
“I think I’ve had many loves, but Carl is my best and lasting,” she told Woman’s World in an interview in January. “He was the one that’s lasted for 60 years.”
