Sending healing thoughts and condolences to beloved entertainment legend Dolly Parton following the loss of her husband Carl Dean, who passed away on March 3rd, 2025 at the age of 82. Dolly and Carl met outside of the Wishy Washy Laundromat the day she moved to Nashville at age 18 in 1964 and they married two years later on May 30th, 1966. Dolly wrote her iconic song Jolene in 1973 about a bank teller who fancied Carl and flirted with him every time he went to the bank. “She got this terrible crush on my husband,” Parton stated during an interview on NPR in 2008, “and he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention. It was kinda like a running joke between us โ when I was saying, ‘Hell, you’re spending a lot of time at the bank. I don’t believe we’ve got that kind of money!’ So it’s really an innocent song all around.” Though Carl preferred to remain out of the limelight, he supported Dolly’s career in every way possible and was incredibly proud of her success on the international stage. Often traveling incognito on camping trips with their truck and trailer, Dolly once explained that when she takes off her wig and makeup nobody knows who she is which allowed them to have some wonderful down to earth private time together just being “Mr. and Mrs. Dean from Nashville, Tennessee”.
May Carl rest in peace.๐ฆ๐
In 2023,Dolly stated that her song My Blue Tears,ย which she wrote during her years on The Porter Wagoner Showย in the late 1960s and early 1970s, is “one of my husband’s favorite songs that I ever wrote.” Listening to it today after Carl’s passing is a poignant experience.
amhrancas 