The last song of the night belonged to Carrie Underwood. On October 21, 2026, at the end of CMA Presents I Will Always Love You: A Celebration of Dolly Parton, broadcast live on ABC and Disney+ from Belmont University’s Fisher Center in Nashville, she stepped out to sing the song the whole evening was named after. Seventeen years earlier, she had sung that same song with Dolly Parton standing right beside her.
Dolly Parton died in Nashville on August 25, 2026, at 80, after what her representative described as a brief battle with cancer. The CMA tribute came almost two months later, with nearly two dozen artists honoring her and proceeds going to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, the program that mails free books to young children every month.
The Night They Sang It Together
In December 2009, Fox aired Carrie Underwood: An All-Star Holiday Special, a two-hour variety show with guests including Brad Paisley, David Cook, Kristin Chenoweth and Dolly Parton. During the show, Carrie and Dolly sang “I Will Always Love You” as a duet.
Dolly had written the song in 1973, a full decade before Carrie Underwood was born in 1983. For the young singer who had won American Idol only four years earlier, sharing it with the woman who wrote it was a moment she had dreamed about.
The song kept following Carrie. In 2016, she worked it into her own Storyteller tour, and at one Los Angeles show she introduced it with a few words about her idol before she sang. That same year, both of their voices were part of the “Forever Country” recording, a medley of country classics that included Dolly’s song. In 2019, Carrie co-hosted the CMA Awards alongside Dolly Parton and Reba McEntire.
What Carrie Said When Dolly Died
When the news came in August, Carrie Underwood posted a tribute on Instagram that leaned on Dolly’s faith.
“She’s not gone. I know exactly where she is.”
She described Dolly as a woman of faith, grace, talent and humor, and closed her message with words of welcome: “Well done, good and faithful Dolly. Welcome home.”
Five days after Dolly’s death, Carrie played her first show at the Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox, Massachusetts. Fighting back tears, she told the crowd Dolly had been a huge influence and “one of the nicest people I think I’ve ever met,” then dedicated her song “See You Again” to her. She wore a custom jacket that night with Dolly’s initials on the back, decorated with butterflies.
A Song That Was Always a Goodbye
“I Will Always Love You” was never a love song in the usual sense. Dolly Parton wrote it for Porter Wagoner, the country star who hired her for his television show in 1967 and put her in front of a national audience. By the early 1970s, she knew she had to leave and build a career of her own. The song was her way of telling him she was going, and that she was grateful.
She released it on her 1974 album Jolene, and it went to No. 1 on the country chart. Whitney Houston later carried it around the world with her 1992 recording for The Bodyguard. But the song started as one person thanking another on the way out the door, which is exactly what it became again in Nashville that night.
The Last Song of the Night
Carrie Underwood came out in a flowing white gown with floral details. Behind her, a pair of pink butterfly wings glowed on the screen, a nod to the butterfly Dolly made her symbol for decades.
She started the song alone. Country Rebel, which covered the broadcast, reported that she grew choked up near the end and struggled to get some of the words out.
Then, a few at a time, the evening’s other performers and guests began walking onstage to join her. By the final chorus, the stage was full of voices singing Dolly Parton’s farewell back to her.
Viewers responded online afterward. Some said the producers had picked the right person to close the night, and others said it brought them to tears.
Taste of Country later reported that the special would send $1 million to the Imagination Library. So the night ended with a song Dolly Parton wrote, sung by someone she had once sung it with, helping put books in the hands of children.
Do you remember the first time you heard Dolly sing “I Will Always Love You”? Share where you were in the comments.