Dolly Parton releases sweeping ballad in tribute to her late husband, Carl Dean

NEW YORK (AP) — Dolly Parton has released a breathtaking new ballad in tribute to her late husband, Carl Dean.

Dean, who was Parton’s devoted husband of nearly 60 years, died Monday. He avoided the spotlight and inspired her timeless hit “Jolene.” He was 82.

“I fell in love with Carl Dean when I was 18 years old. We have spent 60 precious and meaningful years together. Like all great love stories, they never end. They live on in memory and song," Parton wrote on Instagram Friday morning. "He will always be the star of my life story, and I dedicate this song to him.”

The song, titled “If You Hadn't Been There,” enters the pantheon of great, big-hearted Parton ballads. “If you hadn’t been there/Well, who would I be?” she sings. “You always see the best in me/You’re loving arms have cradled me.” The music swells and on the chorus, she's joined by a choir, her voice soaring.

At the end, she retreats back to a whisper for the song's titular line: “I wouldn't be here/If you hadn't been there.”

Parton met Dean outside the Wishy Washy Laundromat the day she moved to Nashville at age 18. They married two years later, on Memorial Day in 1966. Dean also inspired one of Parton's best-known songs, “Jolene,” after a flirty bank teller seemed to take innocent interest in her husband.

Parton and Dean kept strict privacy around their relationship for decades, Parton telling The Associated Press in 1984: “A lot of people say there’s no Carl Dean, that he’s just somebody I made up to keep other people off me.”