A room full of rock stars found its center of gravity backstage at the 2022 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony: Dolly Parton.
Pink was there. So was Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford. But Greg
Harris remembers how the other artists gravitated toward the country icon.
"Backstage, everybody wanted to be near Dolly," the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum president and CEO recalled. "All the other artists. She was extremely special in that way."
Parton, who died Aug. 25 at age 80, had initially questioned whether she belonged there at all. She tried to withdraw from consideration in 2022 because she didn't consider herself a rock artist. She was ultimately inducted and later released the rock album "Rockstar," recruiting some of rock's biggest names along the way.
Her induction night, Harris said, showed why the lines separating country and rock 'n' roll aren't as rigid as their labels suggest.
Parton performed "Jolene" alongside artists including Halford. Pink inducted the "Jolene" singer. For Harris, the combination made sense.
"Rock and roll came from blues, gospel and country," Harris said. "It's a great cross-pollination."
That shared history is bringing the Rock Hall to Nashville for the second "Rock the Ryman" concert on Sept. 1, a collaboration with Ryman Auditorium built around the intersection of country and rock.
More than 100 Rock Hall inductees have performed at the Ryman, Harris said. Seventeen artists have been inducted into both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Country Music Hall of Fame, including Parton, Hank Williams, the Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash.
The Rock Hall also has an exhibit at the Ryman celebrating the more than 100 inductees who have played the venue and works with the Country Music Hall of Fame, including lending and borrowing artifacts for exhibits.
"We hope that they visit both places and they come away learning about this music, learning about American culture," Harris said.
That relationship was on display Sept. 1 during the second "Rock the Ryman," which featured Nashville artists performing songs by Rock Hall inductees. Before the show, Harris singled out Wynonna Judd's rehearsal as one performance that caught his attention.
"Wynonna crushes Led Zeppelin," Harris said. "Crushes it. Her vocals are just amazing. There's a lot of fire there."
Harris said the Rock Hall wants to continue the Ryman concert, which has so far operated on roughly a two- to three-year cycle, though there is not yet a date for another installment.
The Rock Hall is also looking ahead to a major expansion at its home in Cleveland.
The museum is adding 50,000 square feet to its lakefront building, with the expansion scheduled to open to the public in November. Harris said the Rock Hall has welcomed nearly 16 million visitors since the museum opened 30 years ago.
Get the 'Dolly: A Life of Many Colors' coffee table book
"What we're building is for the next 30 years," Harris said, "to welcome the next 16 million."
The physical expansion comes as Harris sees the definition of rock 'n' roll expanding, too.
Streaming has given listeners the ability to move among genres in a way that wasn't as easy when radio stations and record collections defined what people heard, Harris said. One playlist today can include country, pop, rock and metal.
Rock remains one of the country's most-streamed genres. It generated 137.2 billion on-demand audio streams in the U.S. during the first half of 2026, second only to R&B/hip-hop's 180.3 billion, according to Luminate's 2026 Midyear Report. Country ranked fourth with 63.8 billion streams.
"I hope they continue to blur," Harris said of genre lines. "I love that artists are guesting with each other, that songs are transcending genre."
He argues rock 'n' roll was never one sound in the first place. The genre's history stretches from rockabilly and doo-wop to soul, psychedelic rock, disco, punk, metal and hip-hop.
"It's about attitude, and it's about spirit," Harris said. "When we define rock and roll, we think about its attitude and spirit more so than any specific sound."
Bryan West is a music reporter at The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow him on Instagram, TikTok and X as @BryanWestTV.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: How Dolly Parton bridged country and rock at Rock Hall | Exclusive
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