Dolly has taste. I think many country legends in their own right would say that Dolly Parton wrote many of their favorite country songs… but do you know what Dolly’s favorite country song of all time is? To the surprise of probably no one, as it turns out, Dolly loves her some classic country… and George Jones wrote one of her favorites. She says she loves “He Stopped Loving Her Today” impacted her deeply, because it “touches every cell in our body” and heart. She says it’s her favorite song, and Jones is her favorite artist, because no one can tell a story like he did: “To me, that song is so well written, but it touches every cell in your body, in your heart. It’s just like he stopped loving her today, they hung that wreath upon the door. He was never going to stop loving her in his lifetime. He had to die. It is so beautiful and, of course, George Jones is my favorite country singer in the world – always was, always will be. Nobody can tell that story like he did. So to me, that is the country classic of all time.” Amen to that, Dolly… And you might be surprised to know how Jones came to record what many consider to be the greatest country song of all time, which was a co-write by Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman, who also penned Tammy Wynette’s “D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” producer Billy Sherrill liked the song enough to take it to Jones. At the time, Jones was in a bad downward spiral in the wake of his divorce from Tammy in 1975 (mostly due to his drug and alcohol abuse problems), and he hadn’t had a #1 hit song in six years. His career was stalling because of everything going on in his personal life. On top of that, he was beginning to fall out of love with playing country music, and was in a lot of debt due to his legal issues and battle with addiction. Needless to say, he was at a crossroads in both his career and life. When George headed into CBS Studio B in Nashville to eventually record “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” they could never get it in one try, and actually wound up putting different bits of different takes together. In Bob Allen’s biography about George, George Jones: The Life and Times of a Honky Tonk Legend, he recalled Billy saying George wouldn’t even attempt to learn the melody because he hated it, and Billy told him that Kris would love it, because he was the one “who wrote it”: “He thought it was too long, too sad, too depressing and that nobody would ever play it. He hated the melody and wouldn’t learn it.” And actually, George thought it was such a bad recording and such a dark song, that he told Billy no one would even to listen to it. It’s a wonder how they ever got him in the studio for this at all… They ultimately released it as the lead single from his 1980 I Am What I Am album, and he wrote in his 1996 autobiography I Lived To Tell It All,: “I looked Billy square in the eye and said, ‘Nobody will buy that morbid son of a b*tch.’” Of course, he was dead wrong, as it became his first #1 single in six years, and ultimately, one of the greatest country songs of all time. He famously admitted himself that it wound up saving his career: “To put it simply I was back on top. Just that quickly. I don’t want to belabor this comparison, but a four-decade career was salvaged by a three-minute song.” Pretty wild that his signature song, and one of the all-time classic country standards (which is probably even an understatement), he didn’t even like at first and didn’t want to record. As a result of the wild popularity of the hit, CBS Records renewed his contract, and it earned him the Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance in 1980. He also won the ACM for Single of the Year and Song of the Year in 1980, as well as being the CMA’s Song of the Year in both 1980 and 1981. And Dolly Parton’s favorite song of all-time was born, too… “He Stopped Loving Her Today” The post What Is Dolly Parton’s Favorite Country Song Of All Time? first appeared on Whiskey Riff.