The inspiration behind some of Dolly Parton’s hits, her husband, Carl Dean, has died.
He was 82 years old.
No cause of death was given, The New York Times reported.
Dean, who was rarely seen with his country music icon wife, had been married to Parton for almost 60 years.
Parton announced Dean’s death on her Instagram account, writing, “Carl and I spent many wonderful years together. Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy.”
Dean stayed out of the spotlight during Parton’s long career, last seen in public in December 2019, in Brentwood, Tennessee, People magazine reported. He had taken a trip to the town’s post office with an assistant.
While rarely seen outside their home, Parton would share throwback photos of her husband over the years.
Back in 1977, she explained, “He’s sort of shy and quiet. What we have together is so sweet and good that I’d never want it to get jumbled up with the other.”
In 1982 she told People “He likes his freedom. If I call him, that’s fine, he ain’t expectin’ it. He doesn’t like me home for long because it interferes with his train’. So we never really have any hold on each other. And yet we have the ultimate hold.”
Dean was an asphalt paver who met Parton outside of a laundromat in Nashville, The New York Times reported.
She was 18 and he was 21 when they met in 1964. Two years later they were married in Ringgold, Georgia, on Memorial Day. Parton’s mother, the preacher and the preacher’s wife were the only ones to witness the nuptials, the newspaper reported. They moved to a farm outside Nashville, spending several decades there.
While Dean remained extremely private, he did inspire some of Parton’s biggest hits such as “Jolene,” which, according to an interview with National Public Radio, Parton wrote after a bank teller became interested in Dean when they were newly married.
“He just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention,” Parton told NPR. “It was kinda like a running joke between us — when I was saying, ‘Hell, you’re spending a lot of time at the bank. I don’t believe we’ve got that kind of money.’ So it’s really an innocent song all around, but sounds like a dreadful one.”
Other songs he inspired included “Just Because I’m a Woman,” “From Here to the Moon and Back” and her albums “Rockstar” and “Pure & Simple.”
Dean leaves behind his two siblings along with his wife. He will be laid to rest in a private ceremony, Parton’s Instagram post said.
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