Remembering 2025’s Music Losses: Carl Dean

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Yes, this will be a controversial pick…only in that you’d probably think it should be in the “others” list instead of the music list. However, if it wasn’t for music none of us would have known this man. Here’s today’s contribution to music that we lost in 2025. Carl Dean Carl Dean was a successful asphalt contractor in Nashville. And you think, “So what?” Well, he also happened to be Mr. Dolly Parton. Carl Dean met the young unknown in 1964 at the Wishy Washy laundromat in Nashville. Dolly said he was impressed that he looked her in the eye instead of the chest. They married in 1966, and they stayed married until his death last March. You don’t get that in country music. In fact, the song he sort of inspired implied that he was an easy mark for any woman who wanted to take him. Dolly explained that was actually an over-dramatization of a joke. Very early on (before she became a star), a bank teller would flirt with Dean when he went in the bank. He liked the attention. Parton said she joked, “Hell, you’re spending a lot of time at the bank. I don’t believe we’ve got that kind of money!” The bank teller’s name never appeared in the song, though. That came from an eight-year-old who asked Parton for her autograph. Dolly said she loved the child’s name: Jolene. Dean went to one awards show with Parton. After it, he said he’d never go to another one. He was very content to stay out of the limelight and the crazy world of celebrity that followed his wife around. If you listen to her tribute to him, “If You Hadn’t Been There,” you’ll hear her heartbreak of losing the love of her life. Without question, in the crazy world of entertainment, Carl Dean was Dolly’s rock. Carl Dean Born Carl Thomas Dean, July 20, 1942, Nashville, Tennessee Died March 3, 2025, Nashville, Tennessee (long illness) (age 82) The song he inspired, “Jolene”: