Ricky Skaggs is recalling how he and Dolly Parton prayed at the altar of a tiny church rebuilt in her backyard before recording the country comeback album that would help return her to the top of the charts.
During an interview with Fox News Digital, the 72-year-old bluegrass and country star remembered working on 1989’s “White Limozeen” with the late music icon, who died on Aug. 25 at the age of 80.
Prior to making “White Limozeen,” Skaggs told Fox News Digital that he visited Parton at her home in Nashville, where the two shared a private, faith-filled moment.
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“She took me out in the backyard and showed me this little church that she used to go to when she was a kid up in East Tennessee. They had torn it down and they numbered all the slats and all the flooring and everything like that. They brought it down to her backyard and rebuilt it into a beautiful little church,” Skaggs recalled.
“She wanted me to go in,” he continued. “We went in there and they had a little piano in there and a little altar, just like the old Baptist churches in the mountains. So we got up by the altar and just started praying after talking in there for a while about our faith. And we asked God’s hand to be on this record, that he would bless it, bless the musicians, bless all the singers.”
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“I just never have forgotten just the power of that day,” Skaggs added. “That whole day was just wonderful. It showed me the kind of woman she was.”
Skaggs recalled how he teamed up with Parton on “White Limozeen” after she invited him to produce the album following an appearance by the singer and his country band on her Los Angeles-based television show “Dolly.”
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“I came up and hugged her ‘bye’ and told her I really appreciate her having us on the show. And I said, ‘By the way, when are you going to do a real country album again?’” he remembered.
Skaggs continued, “She said, ‘Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about that. And I think I really want to do a country record. But I want you to produce it.’ I said, ‘What?'”
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“I was shocked to the bone,” he admitted. “That was one of the most mind-blowing, waking up smelling the roses kind of thing that I’d ever had happen at that time, musically for sure. But that was just being the right person in the right place at the right time around the right person.”
“Only God could make those things happen.”
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After rising to global fame as a country singer, Parton spent much of the late 1970s and 1980s broadening into pop-influenced material. Prior to “White Limozeen,” she released her 1987 solo album “Rainbow,” which was a critical and commercial disappointment. “Rainbow,” which marked her most overtly pop-leaning solo album, struggled to find an audience, peaking at No. 18 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums and failing to produce a Top 40 country single.
With “White Limozeen,” Skaggs brought Parton back to a more traditional country sound. The album became a hit, reaching No. 3 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, yielding two No. 1 country hits, “Why’d You Come in Here Lookin’ Like That” and “Yellow Roses,” and earning a Gold certification from the RIAA.
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Although “White Limozeen” remained their only major recording collaboration, Skaggs said he and Parton shared a lasting bond rooted in their Appalachian backgrounds and Christian faith.
The Kentucky native said Parton lived out her beliefs through compassion and generosity, even though some were critical of her glamorous image.
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“Some religious people would have really, and probably did, judge her for the way she wore her clothes, or the way that she did this and that and the other, but man, she reflected the love of Jesus everywhere she was,” he said. “She did so much for the homeless, for the poor, for hurting people.”
“She used what God had given her with her talent and her gifts, but she used that for His advantage, I mean, to show God’s love to people that didn’t feel loved by the world or by others, even other Christians,” Skaggs continued. “And I just, I loved her for that. And I’ve really thought a lot about that since her passing.”
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Throughout her life, Parton was known for her philanthropy, which spanned literacy, disaster relief and medical research. In 1995, she launched the Imagination Library, a program that gifted hundreds of millions of free, age-appropriate books to children from birth to age 5 worldwide.
The 11-time Grammy Award winner also established the My People Fund after the 2016 Great Smoky Mountains wildfires, providing eligible Sevier County families whose homes were destroyed with $1,000 a month for up to six months. In 2020, Parton donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center for COVID-19 research.
While speaking with Fox News Digital, Skaggs reflected on how the moment he shared with Parton in her backyard church had stayed with him and influenced his own band’s pre-show ritual.
“Me and my band nowadays, we pray every time before we go out on stage and everything,” he said. “We just say a prayer and thank God for our gifts and our talents and just ask that someone would be touched by the songs that we do.”
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“I just never have forgotten just the power of that day,” he added. “That whole day was wonderful. It showed me the kind of woman that she was.”
Skaggs also shared how he hoped that Parton would be remembered following her death.
“She was serious about music. She was serious about her life. She was serious about God,” he said. “I’m telling you in her heart, I never met a person that had a more pure golden heart than Dolly.”
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“She was pure hearted,” Skaggs added. “I never heard her judge anyone.”
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The “Country Boy” singer told Fox News Digital that he believed Parton’s dedication to philanthropy would also be a major part of her lasting legacy.
“We don’t even know what all that she’s done,” he said. “Probably her family does, but she told them, ‘Look, don’t be out telling all the things I’m doing. I don’t want people to think I’m doing this for publicity. I don’t need it. I don’t want it. I want to do this because I love people and I want to help.’”
