On October 17, 2026, Patty Loveless, who has rarely sung in public for years, came to the Grand Ole Opry for Vince Gill’s 35th anniversary as a member. The song she chose for her own set was “The Pain of Loving You,” a duet Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton wrote together and released in 1971. Patty first heard them sing it at 14, watching from backstage at the Ryman Auditorium as their guest. Dolly Parton had died less than two months earlier.
A Teenager in Porter Wagoner’s Office
In 1971 Patty’s older brother Roger, who had moved to Nashville and found work on The Porter Wagoner Show, brought his sister to town hoping to meet the Wilburn Brothers. They were out of town that weekend, so Roger walked her into Porter Wagoner’s office instead.
Patty sang “Sounds of Loneliness,” a song she had written for her father, a coal miner. Porter invited them to stay the weekend, to watch a taping of his television show with Dolly and to go backstage at the Opry, then still held at the Ryman.
Porter told her to go home and finish school, but he and Dolly brought her along on weekends and during the summer. She later recalled singing “The Pain of Loving You” with Porter, and singing lead while Dolly sang harmony on one of Dolly’s own songs.
The Song Porter Never Heard
On August 12, 2007, his 80th birthday, Porter Wagoner was honored at the Opry for 50 years of membership. Dolly came back to sing for him. So did Patty, and the song she picked was “The Pain of Loving You.”
She later said that singing with Dolly and Porter at his 50th celebration felt like coming full circle: the teenager who had once sung in Porter’s office was now singing for him on the Opry stage.
Porter died on October 28, 2007, about two months later. In the same stretch Patty also lost her mother and her mother-in-law, and she took time away from recording to heal. When she returned with the album Sleepless Nights in 2008, “The Pain of Loving You” was on it.
Porter never got to hear her recording. Dolly did, and told Patty she approved.
A Pause at the Opry Microphone
That was the story Patty set out to tell the Opry crowd. She admitted she still gets nervous every time she walks onto that stage, and explained why:
“This is a holy place to me.”
She remembered being 14, backstage at the Ryman as Porter and Dolly’s guest, and said the two of them were the best together. When she reached the part about Porter not living to hear her version, and Dolly hearing it, she stopped. It took her a moment before she could finish. Then she said she would do her best for Dolly and for Porter, and sang their song.
“You Ain’t No Porter Wagoner”
Dolly came up again later. A video of Vince’s Opry years included a clip of him with Dolly, and he told the story behind it.
One night, he said, Patty could not make it to sing their duet, so Dolly stepped in and took her part. When they finished and the crowd was still cheering, Dolly turned to him and said she knew she was no Patty Loveless. Then she added that he was no Porter Wagoner, either.
With that, Vince called Patty out, and they sang the duet Dolly had once borrowed, “My Kind of Woman/My Kind of Man.” Vince wrote the song, and the pair recorded it with producer Tony Brown. Released in May 1999, it appeared on both his album The Key and her collection Classics, and the two introduced it on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. That September it won the CMA award for Vocal Event of the Year.
When they finished at the Opry, Vince told the crowd he still wasn’t Porter Wagoner. Earlier, thanking his friends one by one, he had described Patty this way:
“Patty Loveless, my singing sister. Nobody better.”
The night ended with Vince singing “Go Rest High on That Mountain,” with Patty, Ricky Skaggs, Amy Grant and Charlie Worsham back on stage beside him.
Closing the Circle at the Hall of Fame
The next evening, October 18, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum held its Medallion Ceremony to induct Tim McGraw, songwriter Paul Overstreet and the Stanley Brothers. The ceremony opened with a moment of silence for two Hall of Fame members who had died within the year: Dolly Parton and Don Schlitz, the songwriter behind “The Gambler” and “Forever and Ever, Amen,” who died in April.
Every Medallion Ceremony ends the same way, with everyone singing “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” This year Patty led it. She gave it an upbeat reading and changed a few of the words to honor Dolly and Don Schlitz.
Three years earlier, at her own induction in October 2023, it was Wynonna who led that same song. The ceremony was not televised, so most fans have seen only a short clip the Hall shared afterward.
Why She Is Seen So Rarely
Patty Loveless largely stepped away from performing in 2009, the year she released Mountain Soul II, which later won a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album. She has spent much of the time since staying close to her husband, producer Emory Gordy Jr., who has faced health challenges. Her appearances have been occasional and carefully chosen.
When she does return, it is usually for the people and places that shaped her: the Opry, which made her a member in 1988, and Vince Gill, her duet partner for more than three decades. In one October weekend she came back for both, and both nights she sang for Dolly.