Zac Brown Plays Dolly Parton’s Video Message at CMA Foundation Teachers Event

Dolly Parton died on Aug. 25 after a brief battle with cancer. On Wednesday, her voice returned to a room full of music teachers, recorded beforehand and played at the CMA Foundation’s Music Teachers of Excellence event.

Zac Brown introduced the video and told the room that Parton had taped a message specifically for the teachers present, taking the time, as he put it, to speak to them directly. He used the moment to talk about what outlasts a career. “When I think about legacy, I think about what we create, but even more than that, I think about what we give away,” he said. Parton, he added, “believed in children and she used everything she built to create opportunities for others.”

That reading is supported by the record. She founded the Dollywood Foundation in 1988 and the Imagination Library, which distributes books to children in multiple countries. She gave financial relief to wildfire victims in 2017 and money toward Covid-19 vaccine funding. The video was consistent with decades of the same impulse rather than a single gesture.

On screen, Parton thanked the teachers for their “passion, patience, and care” and told them to “keep making beautiful music together.” An awards ceremony honoring music educators is a modest stage by her standards. In a career built on songwriting, the message argued that what a teacher passes on counts as legacy too.