“I’m a little bit of a mess right now,” said Orville Peck as he took the stage for an in-store performance at Rough Trade East in London on Tuesday, August 25th. After informing the audience of Dolly Parton‘s passing, he began his set with a heartfelt version of Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.”
“She really stood for kindness and I think that’s something that is really lacking in the world these days,” he said in an emotional introduction. “I think as a gay man coming into country music and feeling sort of alone, the thing that always felt comforting is, like, just knowing Dolly existed in country… made me feel like maybe I had a friend there.”
The emotion remained in Peck’s voice during his performance of the song, particularly during the third verse. While there have been a lot of tributes to Parton since her passing, there’s something about the sparse arrangement of this version and Peck’s voice that is particularly affecting.
