He did not care.
That is not sentimental interpretation.
It is the consistent testimony of the only two witnesses.
In the rare interviews Carl gave, and there are essentially two worth citing across 60 years, he described himself as a man with no interest in show business whatsoever.
In 2016, he was quoted in a statement released through her camp saying that when he saw her, his first thought was, “I’m going to marry that girl.”
And his second thought was that his mother would kill him if he came home with a woman dressed like that.
He asked her out.
She said she couldn’t leave the laundry.
So he sat there and waited for her clothes to dry.
They courted for 2 years and this is where the standard version goes soft and the real version gets interesting.
The romance itself appears to have been genuinely ordinary.
He came to the small apartment where she was living.
Her family, those Pentecostal Owenses, had to approve of him and he pᴀssed which mattered enormously to her.
There is no evidence of arrival, no dramatic obstacle, no forbidden anything.
The obstacle was her record contract.
By 1965, she had signed with Monument Records under Fred Foster, and Foster was building her.
He initially wanted her cut as a pop singer, not a country one, because of The Voice.
And Monument’s position, which Dolly has stated plainly in interviews, and which Foster never seriously disputed, was that she should not get married.
Not yet.
A young female singer being launched into the market was more valuable single.
A husband was a liability on a publicity sheet.
