Ashley McBryde is one of the performers for CMA Presents I Will Always Love You: A Celebration of Dolly Parton, a TV special honoring Dolly Parton, and her extraordinary life and career. McBryde reveals ahead of the show that she is performing “Coat of Many Colors,” a song Parton released in 1971, as the title track of her eighth studio album.
“The most beloved artist of all time,” McBryde tells the Country Music Association. “There aren’t any of us who weren’t touched and influenced by Dolly Parton. She’s one of our first examples ever of someone who is first-name famous. Doesn’t even need the rest of her name for you to know who we’re talking about. And to be selected to be one of the voices that gets to honor her is truly an honorable thing to get to do. And to be chosen to sing ‘Coat of Many Colors,’ all I gotta do is make her proud.”
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How Dolly Parton Influenced Ashley McBryde
McBryde can point to very early in her life when Parton started influencing her, and her own career.
“Dolly Parton was how I found out that, just because you’re a singer/songwriter/entertainer, that does not exclude you from being an actor,” McBryde says. “I had no idea. And then I watched 9 to 5, and I was like, ‘Is that Dolly Parton? Is that Dolly Parton? That’s the same Dolly Parton as ‘Coat of Many Colors.’ That’s the same Dolly Parton as ‘Jolene.’ There’s a path, and she showed it to us.”
McBryde also learned a lot from Parton about songwriting, a passion for both of them.
“Dolly could make a song out of two children playing on the floor,” McBryde says. “Whether she’s sitting at the table having a cup of coffee or anything. And she could make that song about two children playing on the floor really, really magical. So it showed me that there is magic and whimsy and a specialness about merely anything. You could make almost anything into a story.”
How to Watch ‘I Will Always Love You: A Celebration of Dolly Parton’
I Will Always Love You: A Celebration of Dolly Parton will air live on Wednesday, October 21 at 9:00 PM ET / 8:00 PM CT on both ABC and Disney+. The show will stream the next day on Hulu. The event is sold out, and in-person tickets are no longer available.
All of the Performers for ‘CMA Presents I Will Always Love You: A Celebration of Dolly Parton’
Ashley McBryde
Béla Fleck
Brad Paisley
Carly Pearce
Carrie Underwood
Darius Rucker
Ella Langley
Lady A
Lukas Nelson
Kelsea Ballerini
Kristen Bell
Kristin Chenoweth
Lainey Wilson
Little Big Town
Molly Tuttle
Reba McEntire
Ricky Skaggs
Vince Gill
Sierra Hull
Zac Brown will perform with Amy Grant, and Kimberly Williams-Paisley will join as a special guest.
Photo Credit: CMA / Nathan Zucker