Bad Wolves will release their heavy metal version of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” on Monday, August 31, donating proceeds to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library in tribute to the country icon, who died August 25 at age 80 after a brief battle with cancer.
The timing is bittersweet. The band had recently finished a metal arrangement of the 1973 classic and was in talks with Parton’s team about a guest vocal. Label CEO Dan Waite sent the demo to Parton’s longtime manager Danny Nozell. Parton heard the track, liked it, and planned to record her parts soon. The band sent stems to her engineers. Those sessions never happened.
“Our new singer is a big fan of Dolly and had posted a bunch of videos of her covering ‘Jolene.’ So we decided to make a heavy metal cover version for our next album,” founding drummer John Boecklin said. “On hearing our version, our label CEO Dan Waite sent the finished demo to Dolly’s manager Danny Nozell with a request for Dolly to guest feature on our version. We heard back that Danny had played the track to Dolly, and that Dolly loved our version, and that Dolly was going to go into the studio and add her vocals very soon. We then sent over the stems for Dolly’s studio engineers to work with. Like everyone, we were devastated of this week’s news of Dolly’s passing. We will honor Dolly’s incredible legacy by donating proceeds from ‘Jolene’ to the Dolly Parton Imagination Library.”
The new singer is Sara “Killboy” Skinner, who joined the lineup earlier this year alongside bassist Derek Bolman. Founding member Boecklin and guitarist AJ Rebollo remain. Skinner’s public covers of “Jolene” helped spark the idea.
The situation echoes Bad Wolves’ 2018 cover of The Cranberries’ “Zombie.” Dolores O’Riordan had agreed to add vocals and called the arrangement “killer,” but she died the day she was scheduled to record. The band released the track anyway and directed proceeds to her children. “Jolene” follows a similar path: an almost-collaboration turned memorial.
Founded by Parton in 1995, the Imagination Library is the flagship program of The Dollywood Foundation. It mails free, age-appropriate books to registered children from birth to age five, regardless of family income. The program has distributed more than 300 million books and now sends more than three million a month. Parton often said it was among the work she was proudest of, inspired in part by her own father’s illiteracy.
“With ‘Jolene,’ being able to use our platform to help deliver critical funding to the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, we know that we can contribute to Dolly’s vision of giving access to books and improving literacy,” Boecklin said.
He closed with condolences: “Our thoughts are with Dolly’s extended family, manager Danny Nozell, and all of the many thousands of people she touched in her extraordinary life who are grieving her passing.”
“Jolene” arrives Monday. For a band that has rebuilt itself in 2026, the cover is both a statement of range and a straightforward act of respect for an artist whose songs, and whose books, reached far beyond any one genre.
