Dolly Parton Has Left Houston a Love Letter, and It Will Unfurl on a Special Symphony Weekend

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Dolly Parton performs at the Cordell Hut Dam Dedication in Carthage, Tennessee in 1973.

Dolly Parton performs during a Grand Ole Opry live broadcast in Nashville in 2005. (Photo by Tech. Sgt. Cherie A. Thurlby, U.S. Air Force.)

Houston Symphony principal POPS conductor Steven Reineke

Dolly Parton in 1977

“Everything is a song to me.”— Dolly Parton in 2024

The August death of Dolly Parton took many people by surprise. Millions were saddened at the loss of a bright light in the world, devastated that no one will ever hear that silvery bright voice, somewhere between girlish and aching, live again.

But Dolly has left everyone a love letter — one Houston audiences can open on Friday, October 30 and Sunday, November 1 when Houston Symphony, under the direction of principal POPS conductor Steven Reineke, presents her multimedia creation Dolly Parton’s Threads: My Songs in Symphony.

The performance will run approximately two hours with a 20-minute intermission, and anyone six and up is welcome.

“It’s for anybody who’s a fan of Dolly’s art — good music and good storytelling — a wonderful opportunity for people to come together to celebrate the life and legacy of a true American icon,” Reineke says.

Although probably not originally planned as such, the night now promises to be a retrospective of Dolly’s life and musical story.

“Dolly Parton hosts most of this concert,” Reineke says, a note of emotion entering his voice. “Can you imagine how warm it’s going to be with her? She comes right out of the screen as if she’s talking to you, telling the story of her life.”

The story unfolds through personal photos and music tracing the sweep of Parton’s life and some of her greatest hits, including “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colors” and “I Will Always Love You,” in addition to her personal favorites.

Vocalists Katelyn Drye, Hollie Hammel and Blair Lamb, along with a guest band, add depth and color to the full symphony onstage. Nashville-based David Hamilton was handpicked by Dolly to create new orchestral arrangements, incorporating fiddles, acoustic steel guitars, banjo, mandolin and a drum set.

Classically trained with degrees from the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music and the University of Miami School of Music, Hamilton has worked across genres, from sacred music and gospel to pops and jazz.

“I’m trying my best,” he told a Wheaton publication, “to be salt and light” — a biblical reference to preserving and shining light on what is good.

A Dolly Dream Declared, A Dolly Dream Fulfilled

In 1977, Dolly Parton spoke with ABC journalist Barbara Walters in what would later become an iconic interview. Walters pressed Dolly hard about her appearance and background in a tone that sounds strikingly condescending today. “Dolly, where I come from, would I have called you a hillbilly?” Walters asks in one memorable moment.

Dolly handled the questions with remarkable composure, wit and a deft, innocent sweetness that foreshadowed her enduring gift of combining youthful charm with womanly maturity.

“If you had’ve, it would’ve been something very natural, but I would’ve probably kicked your shins or something,” the then-31-year-old Parton responds. 

Still, Walters managed to elicit an important clue to the overarching goal Dolly Parton had set out for herself.

“I wanted to be more than a farmer’s daughter, even though I’m proud to be,” Parton said. “I wanted pretty things, to buy the things I’d always wanted as a child. I wanted, I guess, to be a star.”

Did she think, Walters asked, she would be a star if they met again in five years? “Yes,” Parton answered with the same smile that has melted so many hearts.

By her second Barbara Walters interview in 1982, Parton’s vibrant repertoire had reached across gospel, country music, pop and faith-based albums. She had fulfilled the ambition she set out to achieve. She was a star.

“I want to mean something,” she told Walters. “I don’t want to be just some joke, with the boobs, the hair, and the tight belts, or whatever. I want to be a meaningful, artistic person.”

A Big Heart

In later decades of her career, Dolly Parton developed a national reputation for her philanthropy, particularly in education and literacy.

In 1995, she founded Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library in Sevier County, Tennessee in honor of her father Robert Lee Parton, who could not read or write. The program sends a free, age-appropriate book every month to enrolled children from birth to age five, regardless of family income. Parton said her father regarded the Imagination Library as the most important thing she had ever done and took great pride in its success.

At the Library of Congress in 2018, she explained what inspired her to form the program:

“In the Bible, where it talks about honor your father and your mother, I don’t think that necessarily means just obey them,” Parton said. “I think it means bring honor to their name if you can.”

In 2024, at Dollywood – her namesake theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee – Dolly Parton reflected on the life she had made. “Looking back on my life, there’s very little I would change,” she noted.

As is made clear from the outpouring of love after her death, her fans wouldn’t change a thing.

Dolly Parton’s Threads: My Songs in Symphony will be performed live with the Houston Symphony at Jones Hall on Friday, October 30 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, November 1 at 2 pm. For more information, go here.