Jack White reached for Jolene at London's Eventim Apollo on 25 August 2026, hours after news broke that Dolly Parton had died at 80. The cover came fourth in a 27-song set, wedged between the two halves of Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground. White finished it by pointing at the sky and making the sign of the cross, then put video of the performance on Instagram after the show.
Setlist.fm puts his last live Jolene on 24 July 2007, a White Stripes date at Madison Square Garden, which makes the London reading his first in 19 years and the first of his solo career. The White Stripes had cut their own version of the song and released it as the B-side to Hello Operator, then kept it in rotation onstage for years. Parton knew the recording and liked it. Talking to The Guardian in 2016 she ranked their version among the greatest anyone had cut, and said she would be interested in working with White.
He had already said something before he got anywhere near the stage. White posted a photograph of a young Parton with the caption "Instant Sainthood." Third Man Records, the label he founded, shared footage of The White Stripes playing Jolene and issued a longer statement about what she did away from music, naming the Imagination Library and her support for education, literacy, disaster relief and communities in need.
Jolene has had a second life in rock that few country songs get. Parton released it in 1974, took it to No. 1 on the country chart and drew two Grammy nominations for it, and the song has since been covered so widely that a version of it can cost a band a member. Bad Wolves lost guitarist AJ Rebollo over their arrangement of it, then released the recording anyway.
White told NPR in 2008 that the name had caught his ear as a teenager, well before he was making records himself, and that he later thought about names beginning with J being used as an accusation, the way Jezebel is. He was drawn to the song before he was a musician at all.
Parton died on 25 August at 80. The Eventim Apollo date belongs to White's Europe 2026 run, and the shows we hold for him sit in the tour guide, with Jolene now back in play after 19 years out of it.
The facts
- Jack White covered Jolene at the Eventim Apollo in London on 25 August 2026
- It was his first live performance of the song since 2007
- His previous one was a White Stripes show at Madison Square Garden on 24 July 2007
- Jolene came fourth in a 27-song set, between two parts of Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground
- White posted a photo of Parton to Instagram captioned Instant Sainthood
- The White Stripes released their Jolene cover as the B-side to Hello Operator
- Parton's 1974 original reached No. 1 on the country chart and drew two Grammy nominations
- Third Man Records credited her Imagination Library and her disaster relief work
How this checks out
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