Dolly Parton Says Mick Jagger Won’t Be on Her Rock Album: ‘I’ll Still Be Runnin’ After Him’

As Dolly Parton was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in late 2022, the country music icon promised to make good on the induction by recording her first rock album, titled Rock Star.

Though Parton has previously said that her list of A-list collaborators on the project (which releases in November) will include Paul McCartney, Stevie Nicks, John Fogerty and Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler, there is one rock music icon she couldn’t quite wrangle to be part of the project: The Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger.

“I never got him!” Parton told ET Online, quickly adding, “But I love Mick Jagger no matter what. I’ll still be runnin’ after him all through the years, because I’ve always had a crush on [him].”

Parton added that the album was largely inspired by her husband of more than five decades, Carl Dean. “I did a lot of the songs he loves, because he’s the the rock ‘n’ roller,” Parton said.

Even sans Jagger, music fans will get a first listen to the upcoming rock album when Parton co-hosts the ACM Awards on May 11 alongside Garth Brooks. Parton plans to premiere “World on Fire,” the first single from the album, at the awards show. This year’s Academy of Country Music Awards will stream live on Amazon Prime Video.

Parton is only the second woman, after Brenda Lee, to be inducted into both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Country Music Hall of Fame.

“I think Brenda Lee has some great songs that would be considered rock,” Parton previously told Billboard. “She was such a crossover artist. I love Brenda, she was a great, great artist. She should be in there. I found out later there’s more people than I knew are in there, and I found out more about what the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame really stood for. … I even have a lot of my rock ‘n’ roll friends and people that are, you know, to the point of being bitter about the fact that they’re not being nominated or in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. So it’s like, ‘If they’re not able to be recognized in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, where do they go?’ I was trying to be nice and good about not trying to take something away from somebody that had truly earned it.”