While recording Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway To Heaven’ for her new album, ‘Rockstar,’ Dolly Parton had some concerns about ‘messing around with it,’ as she shared in a recent chat with Classic Rock.
Parton collaborated with many rockers for the record that came out on November 17 to cover some rock classics like ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘Free Bird.’ But ‘Stairway To Heaven’ was the one track that received a warning from her husband:
“My husband is a huge fan of Led Zeppelin and thinks ‘Stairway To Heaven’ is one of the classic songs of all time. So he was kind of concerned about me doing it. He said: ‘I don’t know if you need to mess with that because I think you’ll get a lot of criticism. People don’t want other people messing around with that song.’ But I did it anyhow. And he made a joke about it at first: ‘I think that was more like ‘Stairwell To Hell’ than ‘Stairway To Heaven!””
Parton’s Version Of The Led Zeppelin Classic
When she previously recorded the 1971 song for ‘Halos & Horns,’ the country singer added her own style to it. For ‘Rockstar,’ she decided to stay more faithful to the original version, though:
“I’ve taken some rock things off and on over my career and countrified them. I did the first ‘Stairway To Heaven’ in the bluegrass gospel field. But I decided, for this album, that I wanted people to know that I could sing it in its original form. And I wanted, more than anything, for Carl to know that I could do that, too. So, I decided to be true to its form. And I have to add that Carl said: ‘Y’know, that’s pretty good.’ That’s really something coming from him!”
The Song Could’ve Been A Band Reunion
For the new record, Parton brought together well-known figures in rock, like Ronnie Van Zandt and Gary Rossington. She also had hoped to collaborate with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant for ‘Stairway To Heaven’ but was unable to do so.
The singer, who worked with the surviving Beatles members on ‘Let It Be,’ last month told Consequence:
“Yeah, I tried. I got Ringo (Starr) and Paul (McCartney), so I’m proud about that. But I didn’t get them. I did like them. But I asked them!”
What Else In The New Album?
Besides the covers, ‘Rockstar’ includes Parton’s original songs, such as ‘World On Fire.’ The song debuted as the lead single from the album at the 58th Academy of Country Music Awards.
