The five best moments from CMA's Dolly Parton tribute

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Set us as preferred Tribute specials are always a bit macabre.They exist, and are sometimes quickly thrown together, to honor and celebrate an artist who impacted so many.

They are also ratings and advertising cash grabs that air on major TV and streaming platforms.“CMA Presents I Will Always Love You: A Celebration of Dolly Parton,” which aired Wednesday on ABC and Disney+, was a lovely tribute to the music and cultural icon who died from cancer in August.It also was a missed opportunity.

As music superstar Vince Gill said toward the end of the two-hour program, “this is not a memorial; but a celebration of an undeniable force of nature.Dolly was somebody that everyone loved: City, country, young, old.”But most likely because the event was put on by the Country Music Assn.

— which naturally wanted to showcase its own talent — it lacked a chance to really celebrate that she and her music could not be contained by one genre.This isn’t just ironic because Parton’s most-known song — a song that was both the title of the special and the end performance of it — was made all the more famous by Whitney Houston, another iconic performer and also one who happens to have been a woman a color and who did not have any other direct ties to the Nashville scene.Dolly herself, famously, appreciated so many other kinds of music.

After her passing, Eminem shared on social media a letter she’d written to him to congratulate him on his 2022 induction to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.“She definitely didn’t have to take the time to do it,” he said as part of the post.“Even for a kid who mostly listened to rap music, she was an icon.

A superstar in every sense.”That said, from Reba McEntire opening the show with stories of just how kind her friend was in real life to a pre-recorded tribute from Bono where his I...