Parton has said it was always her dream to perform at the Opry.
“For me, the Opry is like the song ‘New York, New York’ — if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere,” she said, according to her Opry artist bio.
At age 13, she got every chance. On the night of her performance, Johnny Cash introduced the young Parton and, after singing George Jones’ song “You Gotta Be My Baby,” she received three encores, the Library of Congress reported.
Parton was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry 10 years later in 1969, and in 2019, the TV special “Dolly Parton: 50 Years at the Opry” — although it had actually been 60 years — aired on NBC, honoring her first performance at the famed Opry House.
In a 2019 interview with Variety about the TV special, Parton reminisced about how informative those early days at the Opry were.
“I just have so many memories, even as a child watching the people backstage and just standing out there on that stage where all the great people stood, just thinking maybe one day I could be part of them,” Parton said.
“Now that I’ve been lucky enough and fortunate enough to see that dream come true, I wonder if some little kid might say ‘I bet Dolly Parton once stood here’ or ‘I’m standing where Dolly Parton stood.’”