Here’s why Dolly Parton allowed Beyoncé to cover her song, but said ‘no’ to Elvis

Whitney Houston and Beyoncé have covered Dolly Parton’s songs, but what made the country legend say “no” to Elvis Presley when he wanted to do it?

Saying Parton loves to create music is an understatement, whether she’s making it in the studio with a full band or on live television with her nails. But she also loves it when other performers take her songs to new heights. Her song 1973 song “I Will Always Love You” was covered by Houston in 1992 for The Bodyguard soundtrack and it became one of Houston’s biggest hits.

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And in an interview with Trevor Noah, she mentioned wanting Beyoncé to cover her infamous track “Jolene.”

“I don’t know if she’s even got the message, but wouldn’t that be killer?” Parton said in the interview. “I would just love to hear ‘Jolene’ done in just a big way, kind of like how Whitney [Houston] did my ‘I Will Always Love You.’ Just someone that can take my little songs and make them powerhouses.”

And Beyoncé did just that on her country album Cowboy Carter. She even got a Parton cosign on the preceding track “Dolly P.” While Parton has offered up two of her greatest hits to two of the music industry’s brightest stars, she refused one music legend. The artist in question: Elvis Presley.

An old Parton interview is circulating around the internet where she talks about Presley’s interest in covering “I Will Always Love You.” Apparently, Presley loved the song.

“Well, actually, Elvis loved the song,” Parton said in the interview. “That was when he and Priscilla were having their problems, which I met her recently and she told me that Elvis loved that song and that he had sung that to her on the day of their divorce.”

So when it was confirmed that Presley would cover the song, Parton contacted her people to help out with the recording.

“But during that time, it’s no fault of Elvis, you know, he loved the song,” Parton added. “But Tom Parker, in defense of Tom Parker too, Colonel Tom, his manager, you know, he made some wise decisions, evidently. So he knew what he was doing. But that goes back to that other thing because Elvis was ready to record it. I’d told my friends and people that he was recording it and they were in town to do the recording.”

However, Parker’s conversation with Parton the day before Presley recorded “I Will Always Love You” stopped the entire recording process for good.

Parton said, “They had invited me down to the session and Colonel Tom Parker calls me the day before and says, ‘Now, you do know that Elvis is recording your song and you do know that Elvis don’t record anything that he don’t publish or at least get half the publishing on?'”

Parton did not like the sound of that and had a very valid reason why she had to deny Presley.

“I can’t do that,” Parton said. “This song’s already been a hit with me and this is in my publishing company and obviously this is gonna be one of my most important copyrights and I can’t give you half the publishing. Of course, that’s stuff that I’m leaving for my family.”

Parker ultimately told Parton that Elvis couldn’t record the song, which left Parton heartbroken. Not just because Presley wasn’t going to record the song, but that she also had to tell her friends, who came down for the recording session, that he wasn’t recording song anymore.

While Presley ended up passing on the song, Houston would cover it in 1992. Houston’s cover of the song saw the track stay at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 14 weeks (achieving diamond status), earned Houston two Grammy Awards (and a third for The Bodyguard album), and became the best-selling physical single of all time by a female artist, all while Parton still owned 100% of both the writing and publishing from the track. Fans were also quick to note that Beyoncé’s “Jolene” has only one person credited for songwriting: Parton, herself.

Keep getting your coins, Dolly P.

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