Dolly Parton collaborated with everyone from Linda Ronstadt and Paul McCartney to Ringo Starr and, in 2025, Mötley Crüe. But among the more unexpected names in the late country legend’s musical orbit is Rob Halford, frontman of heavy metal legends Judas Priest.
The two singers first crossed paths at the 2022 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, where Parton was inducted and Judas Priest received the Hall's Musical Excellence Award. Toward the end of the evening, Parton assembled a star-studded group of fellow hosts and inductees — including Brandi Carlile, P!nk, Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon, Sheryl Crow, Annie Lennox, Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo — to join her for a performance of her signature hit, "Jolene."
Halford was among those invited to sing, giving him the chance to meet one of his longtime idols. In fact, the Judas Priest singer told Metal Hammer that he'd had a feeling the encounter was coming.
“Somehow, instinctively, I knew we were going to meet,” Rob explained. “I always tell the story of my mother’s grandmother, who was a clairvoyant, and I still think I’ve got a little of that in me, because something went, ‘You’re going to meet Dolly Parton.’
"Two or three days later, these emails come into the office, and Dolly’s reached out, asking, ‘Would you sing some lines on Jolene?’ You sit at home and go, ‘Oh my god, this is truly going to happen!’ Being a gay guy, ‘I’ve got nothing to wear!’ I know that she likes to sparkle and I like to sparkle, so what I wore on that night was apropos.”
Apparently it didn’t matter to Dolly. As Halford explained, she only had eyes for his facial hair.
“She goes, ‘I love your beard!’” Halford recalled. “and she starts to clean my beard! It was so surreal! I’m meeting this living legend and she’s tickling my beard and going, ‘So you’re going to sing some Jolene with me?’ I was just floating.”
Their connection didn't end with that memorable backstage encounter. In 2023, Parton invited Halford to join her on "Bygones," a duet featured on her star-studded rock album Rockstar. Although the singers recorded their parts separately, Halford sent his vocals to Parton and received an enthusiastic response.
“We’re on the phone to each other and she’s going, ‘Send me the files! Send me the files!’" Halford said. "So I sent her the files and she calls back and goes, ‘I love these! This is gonna be great!’ This is Dolly Parton on speakerphone! Ha ha! She’s just this beautiful beacon of life. You can tell by the way I’m speaking that this is important to me as a musician, to have had this literally once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with someone so great.”
