‘Never Easy to Say Goodbye’: Dolly Parton’s Brother David Parton Dies
By Movieguide® Contributor
Dolly Parton is mourning the death of her brother, David Wilburn Parton, who passed away Nov. 15.
“My brother David passed away peacefully this morning,” Parton’s sister Stella posted on X. “It’s never easy to say goodbye to a loved one but he got his angel wings and is now at peace.”
In another post on Facebook, Stella wrote, “Thank you for all your kind thoughts to my family as we continue to grieve the loss of our much loved and cherished oldest brother David.”
Parton has not yet commented publicly on the loss of her brother.
She has often spoken about the importance of faith in her life, especially during hard times like this.
READ MORE: HOW DOLLY PARTON KEEPS FAITH ‘FIRST AND FOREMOST’ IN HER LIFE
David is also survived by his siblings, including Parton and Stella, as well as Willadeene, Coy, Robert Jr., Cassie, Freida and Rachel. Brothers Larry, Floyd and Randy have passed away.
Family has always been very important to Parton, and she celebrated them on her most recent album, Smoky Mountain DNA: Family, Faith, and Fables. Parton duets with five generations of family members on the project.
“We’re kind of like the Carter family. We go back generations,” Parton told AP News.
She added, “I would imagine this will be my favorite album. This really involves, you know, my grandmas and my grandpas, my uncles and my aunts and all the people going all the way back that had the biggest influence on my life. The ones that I remember from being little, and it even goes on farther back from there.”
Parton and her team used digital technology to add the voices of family members that have passed away to the songs, which made the country star “emotional.”
“I got very, very emotional many times when I was singing, especially with the ones that have already passed and just remembering their voices, hearing them,” Parton shared. “It just kind of threw me in to a deep emotional place, just like I had them back again. So, the whole thing was very heart wrenching. But it was really amazing and very restoring. It had so many colors of emotions in it.”