Send "Dolly Parton " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Avclub |
 Dolly Parton’s name immediately conjures an almost cartoonish picture of backwoods glamour given a shiny rhinestone overlay. That’s probably fine with Parton, who has often quipped that it takes a lot of money to look as cheap as she does. Besides, the look has its roots in her own life. Parton converted her hardscrabble beginnings into international superstardom through willfulness, business savvy, careful image management, and tireless self-promotion. Hers is one of the greatest ongoing success stories in country music, so much so that it’s become almost too easy to overlook her skills as a songwriter and performer. It hasn’t helped that her prolific, decades-spanning career hasn’t really had a coherent overview until now. The four-disc set Dolly covers Parton’s recording career from “Puppy Love” (recorded when Parton was just 12) through 1993, when country radio began to lose interest in most of its old stalwarts. Parton has carried on nicely as an independent artist since then, but that’s another story. Anyway, Dolly already features enough twists and turns to fill a box set.After some forays into girl-group pop, Parton found her home on the country charts in the mid-’60s with the hits “Dumb Blonde,” which insisted she was anything but, and “Something Fishy.” The latter, like most of the hits from Parton’s golden age, came from her own pen, yet the years to come found her playing sidekick. In a Faustian bargain, Parton signed on as Porter Wagoner’s sidekick on his highly rated syndicated show. In return, she got a chance for her telegenic personality to make her a household name in country-loving homes—and she got a partner with whom she shared an incredible chemistry. Her career also got another set of hands on the steering wheel. The pair parted, less-than-amicably, in 1974. Yet while previously unthinkable crossover success awaited Parton after the breakup, the bulk of Dolly comes from the professionally tumultuous, creatively astounding period from the mid-’60s through the Wagoner split. Whether singing love songs, cheating songs, or two-person versions of the country gothic tales that made Wagoner’s solo career, Wagoner and Parton delivered one classic duet after another, squeezing a film’s worth of drama into the span of a 45. On her own, Parton performed as if she had something to prove, singing stories rooted in her Tennessee upbringing, if not her own life. Ominous key changes usher in tragedy and hope comes in whispers, as good girls go bad, strong women lament a world seemingly against them, and the poor make something out of nothing with God’s help. Parton sings the stories of each with forceful conviction, a vulnerable vibrato, and a gripping commitment to the moment. (Fans of the truly odd will want to seek out “Evening Shade,” the story of an orphanage revolt.)...full text |
| Popmatters |
| That Dolly Parton’s first hit, in 1967, was called “Dumb Blonde” seems appropriate in retrospect, because she spent her career defying that image while visually embodying it. The song was a slight but feisty rejoinder at an ex-lover: “just because I’m blonde / don’t think I’m dumb / ‘cause this ‘dumb blonde’ ain’t nobody’s fool”. The song proved her point. It and subsequent hits caught Porter Wagoner’s ear, which took her to the Grand Ole Opry, to a successful career as a singer, and beyond. Way beyond, to a career as one of country music’s legendary performers and best songwriters, to the status of larger-than-life pop-culture icon. The four-CD set Dolly starts even before that beginning. “Dumb Blonde” is the 11th track in what amounts to a comprehensive musical biography of Parton’s career. The earliest songs were recorded in 1959, when she was just 13. Dolly starts this early in Parton’s life because it is the music-product equivalent of the bio-pic (or auto-bio-pic, truly), taking us from the humblest of beginnings to the highest of heights. Like the young Michael Jackson she sounds the natural talent in these early songs, singing beyond her years. She carries her personality in her voice even as it sounds immature, a work in progress. The songs are less country than generic ‘50s pop: a silly love song about silly love called “Puppy Love”; a prom ballad with the appropriate glow and echo, even in demo form (“Gonna Hurry (As Slow As I Can)”, one of seven previously unreleased songs in the set). Here is your reminder that country singers are pop singers too, that pop stars ‘went country’ long before Jessica Simpson and Darius Rucker....full text |
| Austinchronicle |
| Dolly might have been titled Dolly 101, such is the sweeping overview found on this 4-CD set specifically designed to mark her career milestones. It's largely successful, because it's hard to go wrong with Dolly Parton; 26 gold and platinum albums make her arguably the most successful female country singer-songwriter, and Dolly goes a long way toward that. The first disc is delightful, from 13-year-old Parton warbling her own compositions with astonishing confidence ("Puppy Love") to her anything-but-country girl group sound ("Don't Drop Out") until she scores her first anthem ("Dumb Blonde") and proves she's anything but foxy by pairing up with Porter Wagoner for some of the genre's great duets. As the discs progress, she's bouncing post-Wagoner sincerity into folk ("Down From Dover"), disco ("Baby I'm Burnin'"), and the guilty pleasure of "Romeo," an all-star hen party featuring Tanya Tucker, Pam Tillis, Kathy Mattea, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and ... um ... Billy Ray Cyrus. Kudos for a beautifully illustrated booklet, filled with enough vintage Parton pics to inspire a whole new generation of drag queens. One of Dolly's strengths is the cache of Wagoner-Parton duets ("Lost Forever in Your Kiss"), another is the singer's distinctive vibrato ("I Will Always Love You"), and ultimately there's the sheer power of her writing. Sometimes corny ("9 to 5"), sometimes maudlin ("Me and Little Andy"), often autobiographical ("My Tennessee Mountain Home," "Coat of Many Colors"), the material's never without the essential element of authenticity. "It costs a lot to look this cheap," she often jokes live in concert, but Dolly Parton's talent has left us richer....full text |
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