The Song Dolly Parton Chose for Her Funeral and What It Reveals – Details & Photos

Not surprisingly, Dolly herself sang “I’ll Fly Away” in concert. Her performances raised a crowd to its feet and got them shouting hallelujahs. That’s thanks to Dolly’s own unifying power. Her music was embraced by Americans of every stripe. Whitney Houston, a daughter of the black church, recorded unforgettable renditions of Dolly’s “I Will Always Love You.” When Houston won her 1994 Grammy for covering the song, it was Dolly who presented it to her.

The funeral songs chosen by other iconic Americans tell their own great stories. Martin Luther King Jr. chose Thomas Dorsey’s “Take My Hand, Precious Lord,” another spiritual that transcended race thanks to memorable recordings by Mahalia Jackson and Elvis Presley. Aretha Franklin was on the mic for the King’s funeral.

And at the Queen of Soul’s own funeral, Gladys Knight sang Paul Simon’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” itself inspired by a version of “Oh Mary, Don’t You Weep,” by one of America’s great black gospel quartets, the Swan Silvertones.

Dolly’s choice is thus another chapter in the broader story of what makes American music great: The cross-pollination of art from a hodgepodge of peoples. (Don’t call it cultural appropriation!) Few artists succeed in embodying the full range of American music as did Dolly. She’s up there with Ray Charles, who channeled black gospel music into the pop charts with such tunes as “I’ve Got a Woman.”

Charles also adapted one of his favorite genres, country music, for his own voice and style, as in “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” written by Tennessean Don Gibson. His gospel-tinged version of “America the Beautiful” — composed by New England’s Katharine Lee Bates — might as well be the definitive rendition. It’s not surprising that his unifying music was embraced by Dolly’s Grand Ole Opry.

The story of how America divided itself has become familiar and dispiriting — how we’ve split into cultural tranches that lack shared experiences and common understanding. The outpouring of adulation for Dolly Parton shows that we retain the capacity to come together when someone actually tries to bring us together. Dolly tried that very thing — and succeeded.

Howard Husock is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of “The Projects: A New History of Public Housing.”