Dolly Parton was incredibly proud of an early collaboration with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, and she later had the opportunity to work with her friends on an album. Their record Trio received widespread acclaim, prompting them to work on a follow-up. On this album, it was not smooth sailing. The women spent so much time bickering that Parton eventually threw her hands up and told them to sue her.

Dolly Parton and two friends fought over an album

While Trio was a success, the follow up, Trio II, hit bump after bump in the road. Ronstadt believed Parton was completely unreliable, and Parton said Rondstadt took an agonizing amount of time in the studio.

“Ronstadt loves to work in the studio and works so slow, it drives me nuts,” Parton told Goldmine, per the book Dolly: The Biography by Alanna Nash. “I wanted to say, ‘Wake up, b****, I got stuff to do.”

Ronstadt’s pace in the studio may have irritated Parton, but the latter’s packed schedule made recording almost impossible. She said she “cried and begged” Ronstadt and Harris to push back the release, but they refused.

“They pitched a fit and dumped the greatest project ever. . . . It got into a power play,” Parton said. “I was made to feel hurt, insulted, burdened with guilt.”

Parton said she eventually gave up trying to save the album.

“I would have lived up to my word, but my word wasn’t good enough for them,” she said. “Finally, I just said, ‘The hell with it, sue me.’”

While they began recording in 1994, the album didn’t come out until 1999.

Linda Ronstadt spoke about the frustration of working with the ‘I Will Always Love You’ singer

Ronstadt had a major problem with Parton during the recording process. She said Parton gave her word that she’d block out time to record, but went back on it for a seemingly trivial project.

“I showed up, Emmy showed up, and the night before we started, Dolly sent us a fax, saying there was something wrong with her infomercial and she had to go back for 10 days.”

Parton committed time to record the album again, but she canceled again. The last-minute cancellation cost them $20,000.

“It was twenty grand every time we got one of these faxes. And we couldn’t get her on the phone,” Ronstadt said. “Then she put out her live record [Heartsongs: Live from Home] right on top of our release schedule, at the beginning of August. She said it was going to sell so good and would help the Trio record sell.”

Parton eventually finished recording her parts, but Ronstadt was left with a bad taste in her mouth.

“I can’t work with her,” Ronstadt said. “She didn’t represent herself as being reliable.”

Dolly Parton later said she and her friends were bickering because of menopause

The album finally came out in 1999, to critical acclaim. Upon reflection, Parton didn’t hold onto any resentment. She joked that the problems between herself, Ronstadt, and Harris were a result of menopause, not genuine animosity.

“I realized we’re now just a bunch of old crotchety, cranky women, set in our ways and getting up there ‘round fifty, goin’ through change-of-life mood swings. You never know a true feeling from a hot flash. I thought, ‘I don’t need this. I ain’t that old.’”