Dolly

We Say...

Review by Peter Blackstock

Ardent Dolly Parton fans may be well aware of all the ground the iconic singer has covered in her five-decade career, but for those to whom "Dolly" primarily brings to mind "country," this set may serve as a revelation. While it's true that Parton has had more country chart hits than any other female singer, she didn't initially set out in a countrified direction, despite her rural Tennessee origins. The first dozen or so tracks of this 99-song collection attest to that, showcasing Dolly as more likely to follow in the footsteps of Annette Funicello or perhaps even Diana Ross rather than Kitty Wells or Skeeter Davis. Though the opening "Puppy Love" (a single she recorded as a pre-teen) is included mostly just for historical value, many of the other introductory cuts here are fascinating. On "Busy Signal" and "Don't Drop Out," the teenaged Parton shows a real flair for classic mid-'60s Brill Building-style pop; she may have been still trying to find her voice, but her talent was abundantly clear. Further, this pop material foreshadowed Dolly's massive country/pop crossover success in the 1970s, when at one point she was simultaneously on the country, pop, and disco charts — with the same song. (That was 1979's "Baby I'm Burnin'," found at the tail end of this set's third disc.)

The turning point was "Put It Off Until Tomorrow," a 1965 country hit by Bill Phillips which features Dolly on harmony; it's included here because it was Parton's first chart success as a songwriter. That paved the way for her 1966 country-Top 40 debut "Dumb Blonde," which not only took her into twangy territory but served as a sort of mission statement for her image and individuality: "Just because I'm blonde, don't think I'm dumb." Next came her partnership with Porter Wagoner; 1967's "The Last Thing on My Mind" was a very auspicious beginning to what became one of the great duet pairings in country music history. (Their many successes were enough to overshadow "Jeannie's Afraid of the Dark," the campiest dying-little-girl song you'll ever hear.) Interspersed with Porter duets over the next few years were tracks that further extended Dolly's boundaries, most notably the transcendent "Down from Dover," which could have been a Brit-folk-rock classic if placed in the hands of Fairport Convention. Similarly affecting from that same time-period is "Everything Is Beautiful (In Its Own Way)," one of seven previously unreleased tracks on this set.

By the time Parton parted ways with Wagoner in the early-mid '70s, she was more than ready to be a superstar; fitting, then, that her farewell to Porter, "I Will Always Love You," became the most successful composition of her entire career (with Whitney Houston's multimillion-selling movie version looming a couple decades in the future). The mid-'70s stretch that followed is the Dolly most casual fans know best, represented here by megahits such as "Here You Come Again," "Two Doors Down," "9 To 5," and the Bee Gees-penned duet with Kenny Rogers, "Islands In The Stream." From there, Dolly's music went a little bit downhill (a cover of REO Speedwagon's "Time For Me To Fly," anyone?), though she occasionally made a high-profile collaborative appearance with the likes of Ricky Van Shelton ("Rockin' Years") or Billy Ray Cyrus (this set's closing track, "Romeo"). The one real drawback to this box is that because it stops when Dolly's RCA tenure came to an end in the early '90s, there's nothing from her spectacular bluegrass renaissance of the past decade, during which she has done some of her finest work.