NASHVILLE — She's been gone six weeks, and she still won. That's the thing about Dolly Parton — even the awards show couldn't quite let go. At the 57th GMA Dove Awards on Tuesday night, broadcast Friday on TBN, the woman who did more for the idea that faith and show business belong in the same sentence got the tribute she earned and one more trophy besides.
The tribute belonged to the Grants. Amy Grant — who has known Dolly for decades — stood on the Bridgestone Arena stage and talked about her like family, because in Nashville, she was. "She felt like she belonged to all of us and her music crossed generations and genres and boundaries of all kinds," Amy said, as the crowd rose. "Faith was woven into who she was, how she lived, and the music she made. She was creatively generous and she was not afraid to stand up and be the person she was made to be. Dolly, we've never known the world without you in it, and I will miss your everything."
How Great Thou Art
Then the music. The stage went pink with glitter, and a clip played of Dolly young — blonde hair piled high, singing "How Great Thou Art" a cappella, just her voice filling the room. Natalie Grant, in a blush-pink gown, took the first verse with strings and piano behind her. Then Amy joined her, and the two of them finished it together while the crowd sang along, many on their feet, hands in the air.
The song choice was no accident. How Great Thou Art is one of the most-recorded hymns in gospel history, and Dolly's relationship with it went back to childhood — it was the kind of song sung in the mountain churches she grew up in. Hearing it sung for her, by two women who represent different generations of Christian music, turned the tribute into something bigger than a memorial. It was a passing of the torch, staged in real time.
It ended the only way it could: with Dolly herself. A few quiet lines of "I Will Always Love You" — her voice, her song, the one the whole world knows. She'd already won her bluegrass trophy earlier in the night. She got the last word anyway.
The last song she ever wrote
"Broken Angels" deserves its own paragraph. Dolly co-wrote it with The Grascals' Jamie Johnson — a song about addiction, the kind of subject she never flinched from. It turned out to be the last song she ever co-wrote before her death on Aug. 25. On Tuesday it won Bluegrass Recorded Song of the Year, and Sonya Isaacs stood in Dolly's place to perform it with The Grascals during the pre-telecast.
There's something almost too on-the-nose about it: the final song of one of the great songwriting lives, about broken people, winning a gospel award six weeks after she's gone. Dolly spent sixty years writing about faith without ever making it feel like a lecture. Broken Angels was the last one. It won.
The rest of the night
It wasn't only Dolly's evening. Phil Wickham took home Artist of the Year — three trophies total, including Worship Album of the Year for Song of the Saints — and used his speech to talk about the privilege of writing songs people sing in church. Tauren Wells hosted for the fourth consecutive year. The night's theme was "Together For One," and the late Richard Smallwood got his own tribute, led by Jonathan McReynolds and Kierra Sheard.
For those who only knew Dolly the country star, the Dove Awards were a reminder of the other half of the catalog. She was inducted into the GMA Gospel Music Hall of Fame back in 2009, and gospel was never a side project — it was the foundation. The mountain church harmonies of her East Tennessee childhood ran underneath everything she ever recorded, from "Coat of Many Colors" to her final session. On Tuesday night, that foundation got its flowers.
But ask anyone who was in the building what they'll remember, and it's the Grants and the glitter and the voice from the screen. Six weeks gone, and Bridgestone Arena still stood for her. An encore presentation airs Oct. 16 on TBN and TBN+ for anyone who missed it live.
