Kesha Pays Tribute to Dolly Parton With ‘Old Flames (Can’t Hold a Candle to You)’ Cover
The singer performed the song co-written by her mother, Pebe Sebert, hours after Parton’s death, bringing a deeply personal musical connection back to the stage.
Kesha paid tribute to Dolly Parton from the stage in Pittsburgh on Tuesday night, performing “Old Flames (Can’t Hold a Candle to You)” hours after the death of the country music icon was announced.
The moment carried an unusually personal weight. The song was co-written by Kesha’s mother, Pebe Sebert, with songwriter Hugh Moffatt. It was first recorded by country singer Joe Sun in 1978 before Parton’s version became a No 1 country hit in 1980.
With a large portrait of Parton displayed behind her, Kesha performed the song during her Freedom Tour at the Pavilion at Star Lake near Pittsburgh. The tribute came on the same day Parton died at the age of 80.
For Kesha, “Old Flames” has never been simply another song from the country repertoire. Its history is tied directly to her family. Sebert co-wrote the composition decades before her daughter became a pop star, and Parton’s recording helped establish it as one of the better-known songs in her catalogue.
Kesha had already recorded the song herself in 2013 for her Deconstructed EP. Four years later, its story came full circle when she and Parton recorded it together for Kesha’s album Rainbow. Parton’s official website confirmed the collaboration ahead of the album’s 2017 release.
The collaboration was significant beyond the family connection. Parton had become an important figure in Kesha’s musical life, and their recording of “Old Flames” placed two generations of artists — connected by a song written by Kesha’s mother — on the same track.
Parton’s death on 25 August marked the end of a career that stretched across more than six decades. She was celebrated not only as a singer and songwriter but also as an actor, entrepreneur and philanthropist, with a cultural influence that reached well beyond country music.
Her family announced her death at 80, while tributes quickly emerged from musicians, actors and public figures around the world.
Against that wider outpouring of grief, Kesha’s choice of song stood apart. Rather than selecting one of Parton’s most universally recognised hits, she returned to a composition that connects the two artists through Kesha’s own family history.
It is a story that began with Sebert and Moffatt writing “Old Flames” in the 1970s, continued when Parton transformed it into a country chart-topper, and eventually brought Parton and Sebert’s daughter together in the recording studio.
Kesha’s performance in Pittsburgh added another chapter.
The song now carries the memory of three intertwined musical lives: the songwriter who helped create it, the country legend who made it famous, and the daughter who inherited its history before eventually singing it alongside the woman whose recording had made it a classic.
For Kesha, that connection makes “Old Flames” more than a tribute. It is a piece of family history — and, following Parton’s death, a way of saying goodbye through a song they once shared.
