Neil Young initially booked Dolly Parton to open four dates of his 1978 autumn tour with Crazy Horse, an unexpected pairing given Parton’s major country-pop success and Young’s rock audience. The arrangement mattered because it showed Parton seeking exposure to a different audience, while Young’s then-newer, country-leaning material made the collaboration less implausible than it first appeared.

The shows had already sold out, so Parton would have played largely to Young fans and planned only to shorten, rather than alter, her set. Industry observers questioned why she would accept second billing, but her manager said Young believed she suited his audience; press reports later suggested she withdrew over billing and set length. The article says the real reason was that Young radically redesigned the tour shortly before rehearsals, abandoning the country-flavoured direction associated with *Comes a Time* for the theatrical, electric-and-acoustic concept that became linked to *Rust Never Sleeps*.