Country music stars Dolly Parton and Shania Twain appear together on Oprah tomorrow, along with Alison Krauss and Melissa Etheridge, who also sing on the new Parton tribute album, Just Because I'm A Woman.
And, apparently, the waterworks fly on the show (CTV-CBS, 4 p.m.)
"Shania was so sweet -- she just got everybody crying," said Parton, 57, down the line from Tennessee recently in her familiar girlish trill. "She was talking about how (she loved) that song, Coat Of Many Colors, because when her mom and dad had died, I had been such an inspiration to her. It was the sweetest thing. She said something like, 'I wish my mother could be here today,' and when she said that everybody started crying.
"We just all boo-hooed," continued Parton. "And I was fixing to go out and sing and I thought, 'Oh, you little s---! You would make me cry."
As well as the teary Oprah appearance, Parton will perform The Grass Is Blue as a duet with another album participant, Norah Jones, on the Country Music Association Awards, on CBS and CH Hamilton, at 8 p.m. Wednesday night.
"I'll start it out with my bluegrass version and then she'll change keys and go into hers and then I'll sing harmony with her," said Parton. "So it should be a real nice moment in the show."
Incredibly, even though Parton, who started singing on radio and TV at age 10, has penned over 3,000 songs, no one has ever attempted a tribute album like this before.
"This is the only time a group of artists have done this, but hopefully it won't be the last," said Parton. "They're already talking about volumes two, and three. Different girls, and different guys too, are calling and saying, 'Well, why don't we get to do one?' "
Parton wrote the title track for Just Because I'm A Woman way back in 1966 -- the year she got married to her publicity-shy husband Carl Dean.
"He'd asked me eight months into our marriage if he was the first, and I didn't want to start our marriage on a lie so I thought, 'Well, I'll just tell him,' and oh, it just crushed him. And then I wrote that song to him."
Dolly re-recorded the tune for the tribute, organized by veteran Nashville producer Steve Buckingham whose office was swamped with calls once people got wind of the project.
"With all these young people (around), I had this joke I've been kidding them with," said Parton. "I said, 'Hell, I was already into plastic surgery when you were still sleeping on plastic sheets!' "
Next for Parton is the Nov. 11 release (in the U.S. only) of an album of patriotic songs called For God And Country, which will be the 73rd record of her career.
"I thought the timing was certainly good here in the States, with all the stuff going on, just in the world, the war and all, so I thought, 'I'll just be the all-American girl and just do my patriotic thing.' "
She'd been up since 3 a.m. working on the show for her new tour when she called five hours later for this interview. She is planning a U.S. tour that likely won't start before next March.
Parton has always been prolific and she thinks her longevity in the music business has to do with her productivity.
"I have a sign in my bathroom that says something about 'A peacock that sits on its tail feathers is just another turkey,' " she said. "I have no desire to rest on my laurels, so to speak. I love to work. I will never retire. I hope to fall dead in the middle of a song, somewhere out on stage, or doing something I love, when I'm about 104."
