ABC/Image Group LAWhen Dolly Parton was putting together her new Christmas album, A Holly Dolly Christmas, she found inspiration in a popular late-night TV host. 

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, the music legend shares that Jimmy Fallon helped inspire the idea to feature collaborators on the project, which finds Dolly dueting with Willie Nelson, Miley and Billy Ray Cyrus, Michael Buble, and Dolly’s brother, Randy Parton.

Dolly says that watching Jimmy perform on The Tonight Show with a multitude of stars compelled her to do the same.   

“Jimmy Fallon is the one that started that whole idea of duet partners,” she explains, adding that she was impressed by Jimmy and Miley’s performance of “Islands in the Stream” in a 2017 episode of his show when the two dressed up as Parton and her duet partner, Kenny Rogers.

“I thought, he has really got a great voice,” Dolly remarks of Jimmy, who appears with her on the album’s cover of Mariah Carey‘s “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

A Holly Dolly Christmas, which reached number one on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart and Top Holiday Albums chart, is the country icon’s first full-length holiday album in 30 years.

By Cillea Houghton 
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