Dolly Parton prayed in backyard church before recording comeback album, Ricky Skaggs says
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Before Dolly Parton recorded the album that would reignite her career and return her to the top of the country charts, she and producer Ricky Skaggs sought a higher blessing.
In a recent interview, Skaggs recalled the private, faith-filled moment the two shared at a small chapel in Parton's backyard just before recording "White Limozeen" in 1989. The Kentucky-born musician described how Parton led him to a tiny church she had carefully dismantled and reconstructed on her Nashville property—a structure from her childhood in East Tennessee.
"She took me out in the backyard and showed me this little church that she used to go to when she was a kid up in East Tennessee," Skaggs remembered. "They had torn it down and they numbered all the slats and all the flooring and everything like that. They brought it down to her backyard and rebuilt it."
Inside the modest chapel, which featured a small piano and altar reminiscent of Appalachian Baptist churches, Skaggs said he and Parton prayed together before beginning work on the album.
"We got up by the altar and just started praying after talking in there for a while about our faith," he said. "And we asked God's hand to be on this record, that he would bless it, bless the musicians, bless all the singers."
Skaggs, now 72, said he has never forgotten the power of that day. "That whole day was just wonderful. It showed me the kind of woman she was."
The collaboration came about unexpectedly. Parton invited Skaggs and his band to appear on her Los Angeles-based television program "Dolly." After the taping, Skaggs said he asked Parton when she planned to record another traditional country album. Her response caught him completely off guard.
"She said, 'Well, I've been thinking a lot about that. And I think I really want to do a country record. But I want you to produce it.' I said, 'What?'" Skaggs recalled. "I was shocked to the bone. That was one of the most mind-blowing, waking up smelling the roses kind of thing that I'd ever had happen at that time."
Parton, who died August 25 at age 80, had spent much of the late 1970s and 1980s exploring pop-influenced material. Her 1987 solo album "Rainbow" marked her most overt venture into pop sounds, but it struggled commercially, failing to produce a Top 40 country single and peaking at number 18 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart.
"White Limozeen" represented a deliberate return to Parton's roots. Produced by Skaggs, the album climbed to number three on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart and produced two number-one country hits: "Why'd You Come in Here Lookin' Like That" and "Yellow Roses." The Recording Industry Association of America certified the album Gold.
Though it remained their only major recording collaboration, Skaggs said he and Parton shared a lasting bond rooted in their Appalachian upbringing and Christian faith. He described being moved by how she lived out her beliefs through compassion and generosity, despite criticism from some who questioned whether her glamorous public image aligned with her spiritual values.
"Some religious people would have really, and probably did, judge her for the way she wore her clothes, or the way that she did this and that and the other, but man, she reflected the love of Jesus everywhere she was," Skaggs said. "She did so much for the homeless, for the poor, for hurting people."
"She used what God had given her with her talent and her gifts, but she used that for His advantage—to show God's love to people that didn't feel loved by the world or by others, even other Christians," he continued. "I just loved her for that. And I've really thought a lot about that since her passing."
Throughout her life, Parton demonstrated that devotion through action. In 1995, she launched the Imagination Library, a program that has gifted hundreds of millions of free books to children worldwide. After devastating wildfires swept through her native Sevier County in 2016, she established the My People Fund, providing monthly stipends to families who lost their homes. In 2020, she donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center for COVID-19 research.
Skaggs noted that Parton preferred to keep her charitable work private. "She told them, 'Look, don't be out telling all the things I'm doing. I don't want people to think I'm doing this for publicity. I don't need it. I don't want it. I want to do this because I love people and I want to help.'"
The experience with Parton influenced Skaggs's own pre-show routine. "Me and my band nowadays, we pray every time before we go out on stage," he said. "We just say a prayer and thank God for our gifts and our talents and just ask that someone would be touched by the songs that we do."
Looking back on their partnership and Parton's legacy, Skaggs said she embodied an unusual combination of talents and virtues.
"She was serious about music. She was serious about her life. She was serious about God," he said. "I'm telling you in her heart, I never met a person that had a more pure golden heart than Dolly. She was pure-hearted. I never heard her judge anyone."