Dolly Parton is one of the most prolific songwriters of all time, which makes the fact that her first gold record was a song she didn’t write all the more surprising. Still, when one considers the work she put into making that single sound like her own, it makes sense that it easily slipped into her musical legacy without the blink of an eye.
Parton accomplished this professional milestone with her 1977 track “Here You Come Again”, written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and first recorded by B.J. Thomas. (Though, interestingly, Mann and Weil had originally intended for the song to be Brenda Lee’s.) Parton cut her version of the song in the summer of 1977, around the same time that she was attempting to break into the Hollywood scene.
Videos by American Songwriter
And while her attempts were ultimately successful, they didn’t come without a price. Parton received plenty of pushback for leaving Nashville for the Hollywood hills, which is why when the time came to produce “Here You Come Again”, she was so insistent on keeping this particular instrument that her producer likened it to Parton staring down a life sentence in prison.
Dolly Parton Knew “Here You Come Again” Needed to Be a Little Country
If there’s one thing about humanity that has stood the test of time, it’s that we are generally averse to change when it comes to our biggest stars and idols. Once we have an idea in our minds of who and what an artist is, coming to terms with a new creative direction or identity can be difficult.
Countless critics accused Dolly Parton of abandoning her country roots when she made the switch from Nashville to California, even if only temporarily. But Parton has always been a business-minded individual, and she knew that achieving crossover success in the pop world would be a huge professional boost.
“Here You Come Again” promised to deliver that boost. But there was one problem: it was undoubtedly a pop tune, with not a lick of country in its mix. Parton was willing to branch out into the pop world, but she wasn’t willing to alienate her original country fans altogether. So, she asked her producer, Gary Klein, to source a steel guitar to give the track a touch of twang.
“She heard a hit,” Klein recalled, per Tom Roland’s Billboard Book of Number One Country Hits. “She knew it was a hit. And she had all these terrible misgivings about the record because there wasn’t a smack of ‘real country’ in it.”
Once they found a suitable steel player, Al Perkins, Parton asked for his part to be present in the final mix. “She wanted people to be able to hear the steel guitar, so if someone said it isn’t country, she could say it is and prove it. She was so relieved. It was like her life sentence was reprieved.”
The Song Was a Huge Crossover Success
In the end, Dolly Parton got what she wanted: a crossover hit with a little bit of country baked in. “Here You Come Again” topped the country charts in the United States and Canada and hit an impressive No. 3 spot on the Billboard Hot 100. The single became Parton’s first record to go gold, and it even garnered Parton a 1978 Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.
Both the California-based Academy of Country Music and the Nashville-based Country Music Association named Parton their Entertainer of the Year, soothing any potentially lingering fears that Music City would abandon Parton for going out to the West Coast.
Photo by Richard McCaffrey/Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images