Carl Dean, a quiet man who shied away from the spotlight but provided constant love and support behind the scenes to his wife of nearly six decades, Dolly Parton, has died at the age of 82.
“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together,” Parton, the country music superstar, shared in a statement on Monday. “Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy.”
A cause of death hasn’t been shared. Parton’s statement noted that her husband would be laid to rest in a private ceremony, and asked for privacy during this time.
How Dolly Parton and Carl Dean met
Parton met Dean the first day she moved to Nashville to pursue a music career, outside the Wishy-Washy Laundromat, the Deseret News previously reported. She was 18 and he was 21.
“I’d come to Nashville with dirty clothes,” the “Jolene” singer told The New York Times in 1976. “I was in such a hurry to get here. And after I’d put my clothes in the machine, I started walkin’ down the street, just lookin’ at my new home, and this guy hollered at me, and I waved. Bein’ from the country, I spoke to everybody. And he came over and, well, it was Carl, my husband.
“I wouldn’t go out with him. I mean, that was somethin’ we was taught. You gotta know somebody or they may take you on a back road and kill you,” Parton continued. “But I said, ‘You’re welcome to come up to the house tomorrow because I’m babysittin’ my little nephew.’”
He came over every day that week.
“I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me),” Parton previously told The Associated Press. “He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”
The couple married two years later, in 1966. Only Parton’s mother, the preacher and the preacher’s wife attended the small ceremony in Ringgold, Georgia.
A quiet — but loyal — support
Parton first appeared on the Billboard country charts shortly after her marriage, and had her first No. 1 hit a few years later.
Dean very rarely made public appearances with Parton throughout her career. He preferred to be away from the cameras and to focus on his asphalt business amid his wife’s rise to superstardom, per People. But his influence behind the scenes was strong and steady.
“Find you a partner who will support you like my Carl Dean does!” Parton wrote in a social media post a few years ago that featured a photo of the two holding hands as Dean wore a Dolly Parton T-shirt.
Parton said she “always respected and appreciated” her husband’s desire to be out of the spotlight.
“It’s just not who he is,” the singer told Entertainment Tonight in 2020. “He’s like, a quiet, reserved person and he figured if he ever got out there in that, he’d never get a minute’s peace and he’s right about that.
“I’ve always tried to keep him out of the limelight as much as I can,” she continued. “He said, ‘I didn’t choose this world, I chose you, and you chose that world. But we can keep our lives separate and together.’ And we do and we have.”
The couple renewed their vows for their 50th wedding anniversary in 2016, a moment that inspired Parton’s album “Pure & Simple,” according to Rolling Stone.
“My first thought was ‘I’m gonna marry that girl,’” Dean told Entertainment Tonight in a rare statement around the time of the vow renewal. “My second thought was, ‘Lord she’s good lookin.’ And that was the day my life began. I wouldn’t trade the last 50 years for nothing on this earth.”
How Carl Dean inspired Dolly Parton’s career — and ‘Jolene’
Although Dean wasn’t in the public eye, he was a major influence in Parton’s career — including serving as the inspiration behind her massive 1974 hit “Jolene” that has been covered countless times over the last 50 years, including on Beyonce’s country music debut album, “Cowboy Carter.”
The song emerged from a situation at the couple’s bank, where a teller appeared to have special interest in Dean, Parton told NPR in 2008.
“She got this terrible crush on my husband,” the singer said. “And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention. It was kinda like a running joke between us — when I was saying ... ‘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, but sounds like a dreadful one.”
Dean appears in the background on the cover art for Parton’s 1969 album, “My Blue Ridge Mountain Boy,” and was the inspiration for other songs, including “From Here to the Moon and Back,” “Forever Love” and “Say Forever You’ll Be Mine,” USA Today reported.
He was also a motivating influence in one of Parton’s boldest career choices yet: her first (and probably only) rock album.
While the project stemmed from Parton’s invitation to join the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — an honor she initially turned down because she didn’t believe she was worthy — her husband encouraged her to see it through.
“From the time I met him in 1964, he just had rock and roll blasting. That’s his music,” Parton previously told CNN.
The singer said much of her song selection for the album came down to her husband’s preferences because “he knows good music,” per CNN.
And getting praise from Dean — especially on her rendition of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” — was the ultimate compliment.
“For him to say, ‘That’s pretty good,’ he meant it’s really good,” Parton told CNN. “And that meant more to me than for anybody else to say the record was good.”
‘The one man in my life’
This year will see the world premiere of a Broadway-bound musical about Parton’s life.
“Dolly: An Original Musical” includes the singer’s biggest hits as it chronicles her life story.
Since Parton’s husband has always valued his privacy, it’s not yet clear how — or if — Dean will be included in that. But even as she has respected Dean’s wishes to be out of the spotlight, Parton has just as long been vocal about the love she has for her husband of nearly 60 years.
“Carl is the one man in my life. I would love to grow old with him,” she told People in 1981. “If he should die first, I may never marry again. My love is that deep.”