Rob Halford paid tribute to Dolly Parton after her death at 80, recalling how their first proper conversation began with Parton reaching for his beard. She complimented it and started cleaning it before asking him about their looming “Jolene” duet.
On Aug. 25, the Judas Priest frontman posted a photograph from their 2022 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame performance to Instagram Stories. The picture showed the two singers sharing a microphone during “Jolene,” an encounter Halford later described in interviews with EW, Metal Hammer and Stereogum.
Parton was inducted into the Rock Hall that night, while Judas Priest received the Musical Excellence Award. She closed the ceremony with an all-star performance of “Jolene” and invited Halford to join her.
A thank-you note arrived a few days after the show. Another invitation followed, and Halford joined Parton on her 2023 rock album, Rockstar.
Parton Cleaned Halford’s Beard Before Asking About ‘Jolene’
Halford told Metal Hammer that he had felt something was coming before Parton contacted him. His mother’s grandmother had been a clairvoyant, he said, and he suspected that he had inherited “a little of that” when a thought arrived: “You’re going to meet Dolly Parton.”
Two or three days later, Parton’s invitation reached his office. Halford’s next concern was less mysterious. “Being a gay guy, ‘I’ve got nothing to wear!’” he recalled. Parton liked to sparkle, he liked to sparkle, and he wanted his outfit to be “apropos.”
Rehearsal brought a different wardrobe problem. Halford told Stereogum that he was wearing a black shirt, shorts and sneakers when Parton walked across the stage “looking like a million dollars at 3 in the afternoon.” He briefly wished he had worn a suit.
Then Parton noticed his beard. “She goes, ‘I love your beard!’” Halford told Metal Hammer. “And she starts to clean my beard! It was so surreal! I’m meeting this living legend and she’s tickling my beard and going, ‘So you’re going to sing some ‘Jolene’ with me?’ I was just floating.”
Halford Says Their Shared-Microphone Moment Wasn’t Planned
Parton’s “Jolene” finale put Halford in a line of singers that also included Pat Benatar, Simon Le Bon, Sheryl Crow, P!nk and Annie Lennox, with Zac Brown behind him. The most recognizable moment came when Halford and Parton moved in close and sang into the same microphone.
There had been no plan for the close-up. “For some unknown reason, we came in really tight together to sing,” Halford told Stereogum in 2024. Watching it later, he thought he had invaded her personal space, although he remembered both of them leaning toward each other. “There was a chemistry,” he said. “Something clicked. I can’t describe it.”
A Butterfly Note Brought Halford Back for ‘Bygones’
A few days after the ceremony, Parton sent Halford a note thanking him for joining her and saying that she hoped they could do something together again. “That’s it, we’re gonna do something,” he remembered thinking.
Another note appeared a few weeks later on stationery decorated with butterflies. This time, Parton asked whether he would join her on a track. Halford laughed as he recalled his answer: “I’ll sing a fucking Barney the Dinosaur song with you, I just want to sing with Dolly again!”
The actual song was “Bygones,” recorded for Rockstar. Halford completed his vocals in Phoenix while Parton worked from Nashville, and they spoke by phone about assembling the track. He said his part took a couple of hours. Parton wanted the files immediately, then called back to tell him she loved what she had heard.
“She’s just this beautiful beacon of life,” Halford told Metal Hammer. He called the recording a “literally once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to work with someone he considered great.
Halford Returned to Their ‘Jolene’ Photograph After Parton’s Death
Parton’s representatives told PEOPLE that she died Aug. 25 at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center after a brief battle with cancer. She was surrounded by loved ones, according to the statement.
Halford shared his Instagram tribute that day. “She won’t want no cryin’,” he wrote over the Rock Hall photograph. He added “I love you Dolly,” along with a heart, praying hands and the devil-horns hand sign.