Dolly Parton has no desire to be immortalized as a hologram. Instead, Parton is letting her music serve as her lasting legacy. During a recent press conference in the United Kingdom, Parton opened up about not wanting to use the help of AI to allow her to still make appearances in holographic form after she passes. ABBA and the late rapper Tupac are some artists who’ve appeared in concert as holograms. “I think I’ve left a great body of work behind,” she replied to a question about being made into a hologram, according to The Independent.
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“I have to decide how much of that high-tech stuff I want to be involved [with] because I don’t want to leave my soul here on this earth,” she added. “I think with some of this stuff I’ll be grounded here forever… I’ll be around, we’ll find ways to keep me here.”
Parton is expanding that body of work with her upcoming debut rock album, Rockstar, which features collaborations with some of the most prominent living rock stars, including Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Stevie Nicks, and Elton John. One of the songs is a cover of The Beatles’ “Let It Be” that features McCartney, Starr, Peter Frampton, and Mick Fleetwood.
“I’ve always loved that song,” she explained of “Let it Be.” “I recorded the song without them and then I thought, ‘Wow, wouldn’t it be great if Paul McCartney would agree to play piano and sing on it?!’ And then I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it even be greater to have Ringo Starr – because that’s the last of The Beatles – play on that track? Then, of course, we had Mick Fleetwood doing some percussion along with that, and then we had Peter Frampton who added a few things on it. I thought, ‘This is an all-star song!”
Heart’s Ann Wilson, Parton’s goddaughter Miley Cyrus, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, Sting, and Lizzo are among the vast-ranging collaborators featured on Rockstar, which drops on November 17.
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