In 1974, Tina Turner recorded Dolly Parton‘s “There’ll Always Be Music” for her debut solo album ina Turns the Country On! Her first release without Ike, Tina Turns the Country On! also featured covers of songs by Kris Kristofferson, James Taylor, Olivia Newton-John, and two by Bob Dylan, along with the original opening track “Bayou Song.”
A decade later, Parton starred alongside Sylvester Stallone in a musical comedy that would spark a series of songs she hoped to sing with Turner nearly four decades later.
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‘Rhinestone’
During the height of Stallone’s Rambo and Rocky films, he traded in the fatigues and boxing gloves for fringe and cowboy hat, starring alongside Parton in the 1984 film Rhinestone. The movie follows country singer Jake Farris (Parton), who makes a bet with the owner of a Western nightclub in New York City called Rhinestone to break out of her contract. When she says she can turn any guy off the street into a country star, the owner picks the loud-mouthed cabbie Nick Martinelli, played by Stallone.
For the film soundtrack, Parton wrote all the songs, and sang four on her own—“Tennessee Homesick Blues,” “One Emotion After Another,” “What a Heartache,” “God Won’t Get You,” and “Butterflies”— while Stallone sang “Drinkin’ Stein” solo. Parton and Stallone also recorded four duets, including “Woke Up in Love,” “Sweet Lovin’ Friends,” “Be There,” and “Stay Out of My Bedroom.”
‘Stay Out of My Bedroom’
When Parton, who has covered Turner’s 1966 classic “River Deep, Mountain High” and her1970 hit “Proud Mary” live, while she was working on her 2023 album Rockstar, she had the perfect song in mindto record a duet with Turner. At the time, Turner, who died on May 24, 2023, at age 83, was already very ill and unable to record with Parton.
“I love Tina Turner,” said Parton in a 2023 interview. “In fact, I did not know she was ill, or as ill as she was, and I wanted her to sing on my rock and roll album. Chris Lord-Alge, who mixed the album, knew her. He was going over there to do some business anyway where she lives, so he was going to take that to her. And he told me, ‘You know, she’s not in good health. I don’t think this is going to happen.’”
In 2022, when Parton accepted her induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, she wore an outfit inspired by Turner.
“I was really sad about that because I had the perfect song that we were going to do,” added Parton. “I didn’t even put it on the album. It was a song I wrote called ‘Stay Out Of My Bedroom’ (recorded with Sylvester Stallone for the film ‘Rhinestone’ in 1984). Maybe I’ll do it some other time with somebody else.”
Photo: Richard E. Aaron/Redferns
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