Why Natalie Grant cried when she heard her duet with Dolly Parton

Nine-time Grammy nominee Natalie Grant thought getting to perform with Dolly Parton at Dollywood earlier this year was a career pinnacle bucket list moment.

Little did she know there would be much more to her Dolly Parton story.

"I thought it was just that, a bucket list moment," Grant told The Tennessean from a tour stop in Southern California. "I got to sing with Dolly Parton. My kids met her. She was so gracious, sassy and funny. And it was amazing."

Not the end of the story

Fast forward a few months to when Grant began working on her upcoming album, "Seasons" (due out October 6), a collection of reimagined songs that made an impression on her throughout her life and career. Without Grant's knowledge, her manager reached out to Parton's manager to see if she might want to do a duet with Grant on the song "Step By Step" which was written by Annie Lennox, but made popular by Whitney Houston in 1996 as part of "The Preacher's Wife" soundtrack.

Unfortunately, Parton was busy and unable to sing on the track.

"When my manager called me and said that Dolly had to pass, I was like 'Pass on what?" Grant remembers. "I had no idea he had asked her. I thought to myself that it would have been amazing on so many levels. I loved the thought of Dolly covering a song made popular by Whitney Houston after Whitney had done 'I Will Always Love You.'"

Grant shifted her focus to the other collaborations on the record with greats like gospel duo Mary Mary and CeCe Winans, among others.

The letter

"Six weeks later, I get a letter in the mail on Dolly letterhead," Grant says with a bit of a fangirl tone in her voice. "It had the word 'Dolly' in hot pink across the top."

The letter was hand written from Parton and basically said she couldn't get the song out of her head and would it be too late for her to still sing on that song with Grant?

"I was screaming and freaking out," Grant said. "Not only had she already said 'no', she turned around and wrote me a letter and asked me to be on the song? Who does that? Dolly does that. She’s so personal, she took the time to say she really wanted to do this. And she did."

The meaning behind the song

For Grant, the song "Step By Step" was so much more than a Whitney Houston song from a movie. It was also part of the soundtrack of her own life.

When Grant moved to Nashville in 1996 to pursue music, she took a day job working at a Medicare office in Nashville's Metro Center. She drove into the city from Antioch every day in her "beat up, old Volkswagen Golf." Her cassette player blasting out Houston's version of the song on a regular basis.

"That job I had at the time was not the plan," Grant said. "I would sing that song, 'Come on baby, got to keep moving' and it became a motto for me, so I thought it would be a really fun song to remake. If you would have told me back in '97 that Dolly Parton would be singing that song with me someday, I probably would have run that Volkswagen off the road."

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Parton's participation

Grant points out that there is a big difference in an artist being a "feature" on a song, versus being a co-primary, which enables the song to appear on both artists' streaming platforms.

"She gave us that. She didn't have to do that. But she's Dolly Parton. She is everything you dream she will be, but not only is she that, she is so much more than you can imagine."

And Grant said she was also blown away by Parton's performance on the song. The two had to record their vocal parts separately due to conflicts with Grant's tour schedule.

"She didn’t just phone it in," Grant said. "She didn’t just sing a little and give it back to us. She gave her heart and soul to that vocal. She sang all over it. She sent it back to my husband who is my producer and said 'you might have to mute me in some places because I just kept singing all over it.'"

Grant says although it's an upbeat, dance song, when she first heard the final version, she cried.

"She just is such a part of the DNA of the whole thing that it just felt so special. It felt like a true collaboration. She never feels inserted. I hear Dolly singing 'come on baby…' and I’m that girl singing that in my Golf and now I hear Dolly telling me. You believe it when you hear Dolly sing it."

As for the handwritten letter from Parton? Grant joked that she will not apologize for the fact that it might be framed and hanging in the foyer of her home.

"This whole experience has taught me that you never know until you ask. Sometimes a little girl's dreams do come true."

Melonee Hurt covers music and business at The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK — Tennessee. Reach Melonee at mhurt@tennessean.com.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: How Dolly Parton and Natalie Grant remade a Whitney Houston hit