Nashville handed Carrie Underwood the hardest spot on the whole schedule. The very last song of the night. And not just any song.
Carrie Underwood is the singer who won “American Idol” in 2005 and grew into one of the biggest names in country music. On Wednesday, Oct 21, she stood on the stage at Belmont University’s Fisher Center in Nashville for a show called “CMA Presents I Will Always Love You: A Celebration of Dolly Parton.” It aired live on ABC and Disney+, and streamed on Hulu the next day.
Dolly Parton wrote “I Will Always Love You” back in 1973. She’s the country legend behind that song and so many others, and she passed away in August. The whole night was built to honor her.
The room was full of country stars who had each taken a turn that night. Going last, after all of them, is a lot of pressure for anyone. Closing a show like that meant singing Dolly’s signature song too. The one everybody knows by heart.
Carrie wore a ballgown covered in tiny butterflies, a quiet nod to Dolly’s favorite symbol. Then Vince Gill, the country star and longtime Grand Ole Opry singer, walked out to introduce her. He’s known Dolly and her music for most of his life, so the handoff meant something.
She started it by herself. Just her voice, soft, the room gone quiet. She carried the early verses alone, and you could feel the weight of what she was singing and who she was singing it for.
Then came the part the caption held back.
As Carrie reached the final chorus, the other stars who’d performed that night walked back out onto the stage and joined her. One by one the voices came in behind her. They sang the closing lines together, all of them landing on the song Dolly gave the world. By the last note the whole room was on its feet, and the ovation went on and on.
Watch her take it from that hushed, solo opening all the way to the ending.
Carrie Underwood closing the Dolly Parton tribute with “I Will Always Love You”
The butterflies on her gown weren’t only for the look. Dolly loved them, and the night was full of small touches like that one.
There was a bigger gift too. The CMA and Belmont pledged a combined $1 million to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, the program Dolly started that mails free books to kids every month.
Carrie has sung this song for Dolly before, and she’s spoken about missing her. At a show back in August she told the crowd, “She is gone, but she is not forgotten. I know where she is.”
If you missed it live, the performance up top is the whole thing.