Brad Paisley performs heart-wrenching Dolly Parton duet alone after her death
Brad Paisley performs heart-wrenching Dolly Parton duet alone after her death
Ellie MuirMon, August 31, 2026 at 1:25 PM UTC
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Country singer Brad Paisley honored his late musical collaborator Dolly Parton with a teary-eyed solo performance of the song they once sang together.
Days after Parton died at age 80, Paisley surprised fans at his concert in Bridgeport, Connecticut, with an acoustic performance of “When I Get Where I’m Going,” the 2005 ballad he recorded with the late Queen of Country.
When Paisley performed the song Thursday, 27 August, he was moved to tears as he told the crowd: “When I recorded that song and sent it to Dolly, I said, ‘A couple of people in my life I’ve lost, and I didn’t know if this would relate to you.’”
“She immediately said, ‘Yes, let me sing on that.’ And [she] did,” he said, according to a Facebook video posted by the venue, Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater.
The song explores the concept of the afterlife and reuniting with loved ones in heaven.
Brad Paisley and Dolly Parton (pictured in 2017) collaborated on the 2005 song ‘When I Get Where I’m Going’ (Getty Images for ACM)
Paisley went on to say that since Parton’s death, the song’s meaning has changed.
“I never thought it would be about her, but it is,” he said. “It’s everything she believed, and we will always love you.”
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The screen behind Paisley onstage showed a montage of pictures of the two singers as the text “We Love You Dolly” appeared.
After Parton’s death was announced Tuesday by her nephew Bryan Seaver, tributes flooded in from across the country music industry. Singer Garth Brooks, who runs Low Places Bar & Honky-Tonk in Nashville with his wife, the country singer Trisha Yearwood, announced that the bar will honor Parton on September 25 by declaring the date “Dolly Day.” The date was chosen in a nod to her timeless hit “9 to 5.”
After Dolly Parton’s death, Brad Paisley performed a teary-eyed acoustic solo of the song she once sang with the late singer (Getty Images)
Dolly Parton died last week following a ‘brief battle with cancer,’ her representative announced (Getty)
The couple said on their website that they plan to make “Dolly Day” an annual event at the honky tonk, with the bar’s earnings from the day going to Parton’s Imagination Library, her non-profit dedicated to children’s education and literacy.
“Whatever the cash register says at the end of the day is going to Dolly's passion,” Yearwood said. “This is 100 percent about Dolly and her love for children's literacy.”
“Dolly may be the perfect example of if you spend your whole life loving, you WILL live forever,” Brooks said.
Singer Miley Cyrus, Parton’s goddaughter, remembered her “Aunt Dolly” as an “angel,” saying, “I will always love her and want to make her proud.”
Cyrus’s dad, country star Billy Ray, who toured with Parton in 1992, said: “Dolly recently sent me a beautiful message, telling me she loved me with her whole heart. I will always love her in the same way ….. with my whole heart … and I always will.”
On Sunday, 30 August, Parton’s family announced that the late singer had been laid to rest at a private funeral. She was buried next to Carl Dean, her husband of 60 years, who died in March 2025.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
