Beck has paid tribute to Dolly Parton, who he first met when he was a child.
The 56-year-old musician was a big fan of the late country music icon – who died in August at the age of 80 after a short battle with cancer – and revealed they first crossed paths when he was very young.
He told Jo Whiley on BBC Radio 2: “Another person who I met – not through music, but it is timely because she just passed – is Dolly Parton. I met her as a child, because a friend of my mum was getting married and they had the reception at Dolly Parton’s house.
“So I didn’t know anybody famous; we lived a very kind of humble [life]. I don’t even think I’d ever been to Beverly Hills before. And we walked into her house, and she could not have been more friendly and hospitable.
“I was taken aback because she was being so friendly to me and my brother.
““It was like, ‘Does she think we’re somebody else?’ Because she shouldn’t be this nice to us, but she was. She was just almost over the top friendly and welcoming.
“In my normal life, there weren’t people who were really, like, that warm and kind and open. So that really struck me.
“She had all the biggest stars in Hollywood there at her house, and she was just focused on us.”
Beck – who was raised in Los Angeles – is the son of performance artist, musician, actress and writer Bibbe Hansen and musician David Campbell.
Meanwhile, Miley Cyrus recently revealed her final conversation with her late godmother Dolly Parton.
Speaking to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, 53, Miley said: “The time that we talked, which was the last time we would talk, it was actually me telling her about [my new] record because even though we are so different, that’s what made us so perfect for each other is that she knew this, and I know this.”
The Flowers hitmaker thinks Dolly’s authenticity is what drew people to her.
Miley, 33, continued: “She’s known for, I guess, the faux, the fake, the hair, the makeup, the show of it, but there’s a part of her that’s just what I think everyone gravitates toward – how real she is and how authentic she is.
“And there was a time in my life, I mean, we hit on it with Hannah [Montana], so much of my life’s about persona.”
The three-time Grammy winner credited the Jolene legend with helping her navigate life as Hannah Montana in the Disney Channel sitcom, in which Dolly played Aunt Dolly, the fictional godmother of Miley Stewart, mirroring their real-life relationship.
Miley said: “I think a way that I could look at that as, you can still have a persona and still be who you are, is because I had Dolly.”
She added: “Sometimes I call what I do drag because the way that I present myself is just someone that is so different from the person that feeds the tortoise every morning. But again, that person’s inside of me – I just kind of have her off.”
