Dolly Parton wrote I Will Always Love You about leaving Porter Wagoner
One of the most famous love songs ever recorded is really a professional goodbye. Dolly Parton wrote I Will Always Love You about breaking away from Porter Wagoner, the rhinestone-suited country star who had put her on his television show in 1967. It topped the country chart in 1974, and years later the pair made up.
Wagoner grew up in West Plains, Missouri, the youngest of a farmer's five children. His first band, the Blue Ridge Boys, broadcast on local radio from the butcher shop where he cut meat. A Springfield station hired him in 1951, which led to a deal with RCA Victor, but early sales were so thin that his trio played schoolhouses for the ticket money. His break came when Carl Smith took his song Trademark into the charts in 1953.
From 1955 he was a regular on the Ozark Jubilee on ABC television, and in 1957 he moved to Nashville and joined the Grand Ole Opry. His blond pompadour and flashy Nudie and Manuel suits became his trademark, and he earned the nickname Mr. Grand Ole Opry. Between 1954 and 1983 he placed 81 singles on the charts, among them the number ones A Satisfied Mind and Misery Loves Company, and he won three Grammys for gospel recordings.
The Porter Wagoner Show ran in syndication from 1960 to 1981, taping 686 half-hour episodes and reaching more than 100 markets with an average audience of over three million. Its feel was loose and friendly, with Wagoner joking with the band mid-song, a comedy spot from Speck Rhodes and usually a gospel number near the end. His duets with Parton became a fixture, and Please Don't Stop Loving Me hit number one in 1974.
He had surprising range: he brought James Brown to the Opry, produced an R&B record for singer Joe Simon, and turned up on Da Ali G Show facing Borat. Parton inducted him into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2002. His last album, Wagonmaster, drew the best reviews of his career in 2007, and that summer he opened for the White Stripes at a sold-out Madison Square Garden. He died that October.
Source: Porter Wagoner
