1968: The Start of Porter & Dolly’s Iconic—but Tumultuous—Collaboration

Many more than just the two of them cared when Porter Wag­oner and Dol­ly Par­ton released their sec­ond col­lab­o­ra­tive stu­dio album, Just the Two of Us, on RCA Vic­tor, on this day—September 9—in 1968.

The album solid­i­fied that nei­ther their onstage chem­istry nor fans’ enthu­si­asm for the pair was a fluke. Just the Two of Us climbed to No. 5 on the Bill­board Top Coun­try Albums chart and pro­duced three sin­gles. “Hold­ing on to Noth­in’” and “We’ll Get Ahead Some­day” both cracked the Top 10 on the Hot Coun­try Songs chart, prov­ing that the duo’s har­monies could thrive on radio as well as tele­vi­sion. Though “Jeannie’s Afraid of the Dark” stalled at No. 51, it has endured as one of the most haunt­ing­ly poignant entries in their cat­a­log.

The suc­cess made Wag­oner and Par­ton one of coun­try music’s most bank­able duos, show­ing that their part­ner­ship was more than a TV attraction—it was a musi­cal force. Bill­board and Cash­box both praised the record, with par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to the pair’s heart­felt per­for­mances on “The Dark End of the Street” and “I Washed My Face in the Morn­ing Dew.”

Look­ing back, crit­ics like Kevin John Coyne from Coun­try Uni­verse not­ed that “a large part of the appeal of these clas­sic duets is that it feels like you’re eaves­drop­ping on a real cou­ple.” That intimacy—sometimes sweet, some­times strained—was exact­ly what made them com­pelling. And while the col­lab­o­ra­tion would one day unrav­el in pub­lic fash­ion, Just the Two of Us remains a tes­ta­ment to the mag­ic they cre­at­ed when their voic­es blend­ed in har­mo­ny.

Porter Wag­oner and Dol­ly Parton’s songs were often described as “like eaves­drop­ping.” “The emo­tion­al hon­esty is so raw,” one crit­ic not­ed.

For Par­ton, Just the Two of Us was more than a duet album—it was a piv­otal step­ping stone. Still carv­ing out her own space as a solo artist, she used the part­ner­ship to sharp­en her song­writ­ing and vocal deliv­ery while lay­ing the foun­da­tion for the super­star­dom that would define her career.

For Wag­oner, the record showed a dif­fer­ent kind of resilience. By open­ing his stage and his sound to Parton’s youth­ful ener­gy, he man­aged to keep him­self rel­e­vant in a genre shift­ing rapid­ly at the close of the ’60s. Their blend—his sea­soned, tra­di­tion­al lean matched with her fresh, emo­tion­al edge—cemented them as one of country’s most dynam­ic duos.

Togeth­er, they set the gold stan­dard for male-female col­lab­o­ra­tions. Their duets bal­anced sto­ry­telling, har­mo­ny, and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty in ways that echoed through the work of George Jones and Tam­my Wynette, Con­way Twit­ty and Loret­ta Lynn, and lat­er even in pow­er­house pair­ings like Brooks & Dunn with Reba McEn­tire.

Yet beneath the pol­ished har­mo­ny was real ten­sion. That tension—the push and pull of two strong artis­tic identities—was part of what made their music so grip­ping. It added an under­cur­rent of authen­tic­i­ty that fans could feel, even if they couldn’t see the storm clouds form­ing behind the scenes. Just the Two of Us didn’t just show­case two great voices—it cap­tured the begin­ning of a part­ner­ship as bril­liant as it was frag­ile.

Their Ten­sion Was Pal­pa­ble

“My hus­band and I don’t argue, but Porter and I did noth­ing but fight,” Par­ton once told W Mag­a­zine. “It was a love-hate rela­tion­ship.”

That push and pull coursed through Just the Two of Us. “Hold­ing on to Noth­in’” gave voice to the ache of cling­ing to a fad­ing rela­tion­ship. “We’ll Get Ahead Some­day” was a work­ing-class anthem that mar­ried grit with hope. And “Jeannie’s Afraid of the Dark” showed their will­ing­ness to step into haunt­ing­ly somber ter­ri­to­ry. The record wasn’t just a duet album—it was a win­dow into the fric­tion, affec­tion, and con­tra­dic­tions that defined their part­ner­ship.

In hind­sight, the project fore­shad­owed their even­tu­al unrav­el­ing. By the mid-1970s, Par­ton was weary of being labeled Wagoner’s “girl singer.” Though she had joined his tele­vi­sion show in 1967, her ambi­tions were grow­ing, her song­writ­ing cat­a­log expand­ing, and her solo sin­gles like “Joshua” and “Coat of Many Col­ors” find­ing suc­cess. She was ready to step into her own spot­light.

But Wag­oner didn’t want to let her go. Their dis­agree­ments turned bit­ter, and their bond grew increas­ing­ly strained. To explain her­self, Par­ton wrote “I Will Always Love You” as both a farewell and a thank-you. She first sang it to him in his office. Wag­oner, moved to tears, report­ed­ly told her: “That’s the best song you ever wrote. And you can go—if I can pro­duce that record.”

It was a moment that crys­tal­lized their com­pli­cat­ed lega­cy: two artists whose clash­es pro­duced as much bril­liance as their har­monies.