The Country Music Association has booked a live two-hour television tribute to Dolly Parton for 21 October. CMA Presents I Will Always Love You: A Celebration of Dolly Parton goes out on ABC and Disney+ that night and streams on Hulu the day after.
The official description promises a joyful, emotional celebration built from performances, archival footage and personal stories, tracing her route out of East Tennessee to a career few entertainers in any genre have matched. What it does not yet include is a single name: no performers and no host have been announced.
Sarah Trahern, the CMA's chief executive, framed it as a debt being settled. Parton belonged to the whole world, she said, but was born of this industry, and the industry "owes her a debt of gratitude that words alone cannot repay." Robert Deaton, who directs and executive produces, said his hope is simply to do right by her story, her music and the people who love her.
The staging is local to that world. The show comes from the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Belmont University in Nashville, and the CMA and Belmont will give a share of the proceeds to Parton's Imagination Library, the children's book programme she built to outlast her.
Parton died in August at 80, after what her team described as a brief battle with cancer. The October special is one of several things now filling the space a public memorial would have taken, alongside the DollyFest weekends her estate has set for Nashville and London. For a country industry that has spent two months paying tribute in fragments, this is the first attempt to do it all at once, and the line-up is the part still missing.
The facts
- CMA Presents I Will Always Love You airs live on 21 October.
- It runs two hours on ABC and Disney+, with Hulu streaming it the next day.
- The show comes from Belmont University's Fisher Center for the Performing Arts in Nashville.
- CMA chief executive Sarah Trahern says the industry owes Parton a debt of gratitude.
- Robert Deaton directs and executive produces the special.
- CMA and Belmont will donate a share of proceeds to the Imagination Library.
- The programme mixes performances, archival footage and personal stories.
- No performers or host have been announced.
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