Jack White Covers 'Jolene' in London Hours After Dolly Parton's Death

The night the music world lost Dolly Parton, Jack White made sure a London crowd felt every word of her most iconic song. Hours after news broke of Parton's passing on Tuesday, August 25, White stepped onto the stage at the Eventim Apollo and launched into "Jolene" — a moment as raw and reverent as any formal eulogy could ever be.

'Instant Sainthood'

Before the show even started, White had already made his feelings clear. He posted a vintage 1965 photograph of Parton — all beehive hair and radiant confidence — to his Instagram with a caption that said everything and nothing at once: "Instant Sainthood." Two words. No elaboration needed. After the performance, he shared a clip of the tribute on the same platform, the opening line of "Jolene" ringing out: "Your beauty is beyond compare." It landed like a benediction.

Parton died at age 80 in Nashville following what her team described as a brief battle with cancer. Her nephew Bryan Seaver delivered the news through a video message posted across Parton's social media channels, bringing an outpouring of grief from fans and fellow artists worldwide. America's Got Talent even paused its broadcast to honor her, a sign of just how far her reach extended beyond country music.

A Cover With Deep Roots

White's connection to "Jolene" runs deeper than a single emotional night in London. His former rock duo, The White Stripes — he and drummer Meg White — recorded a studio version of the song as a B-side to their 2000 single "Hello Operator." Four years later, a live recording of the cover was released as its own single, according to Billboard, and while it never cracked the American charts, it climbed to No. 16 on the UK Singles chart and hit the top spot on the UK Indie chart. There's something fitting, then, about White choosing London — the city where "Jolene" once ruled the indie airwaves — as the place to pay his respects.

Parton wrote and recorded the original in 1973, and it topped the Hot Country Songs chart in 1974 while peaking at No. 60 on the Billboard Hot 100. For a song that didn't exactly explode commercially on the pop side, its cultural gravity has proven immeasurable.

'Jolene' Lives Across Generations

"Jolene" has never really belonged to any single era. Beyoncé breathed new life into it with a reimagined interpolation on her country album Cowboy Carter, which featured updated lyrics and reached No. 7 on the Hot 100 in 2024 — and she wasn't shy about what Parton meant to her. Before that, Parton herself appeared on a Pentatonix cover version in 2016 that climbed to No. 18 on Hot Country Songs. The song keeps finding new voices because the emotion at its core — desperate, pleading, achingly human — never gets old.

White's choice to play it live in the immediate wake of Parton's death wasn't a setlist decision. It was instinct. It was grief channeled through six strings and a microphone in a darkened theater, offered up to a woman who had been showing signs of health struggles in her final months but never stopped being larger than life.

A Legacy That Refuses to Be Quiet

Dolly Parton spent six decades building something rare: a catalog so sturdy, an image so warm, and a personality so genuinely generous that even the hardest-edged rockers couldn't help but bow down. Jack White — leather jacket, raw sound, Detroit-born defiance — standing on a London stage and singing about a flame-haired temptress named Jolene might be the most honest tribute the night had to offer.

She was, as he put it, an instant saint. The world already knew that. Tuesday just made it official.