Six Degrees of "Coat of Many Colors"

Coat of Many Colors is the moment when Dolly Parton became a star. Its title track a Top Ten narrative of Dolly's humble origins — a story that follows her still — Coat brought her out from Porter Wagoner's shadow and cast her as country's Self-Made Woman #1. It also wonderfully encapsulates every element of the nearly 40 years of Dolly's career that have passed since its release: it dabbles in bluegrass and roots music, features triumphant, Memphis-style R&B, and winks at the majesty of pure pop, all in a tidy 27 minutes. It's a killer.

The best song by a long shot is "Here I Am," a song so stupendous it's a miracle it was never an enormous, career-defining hit. Written by Dolly (as is almost every song here), "Here I Am" is a big, '70s-style power ballad, a finger-wag to any man that might underestimate how great even a little bit of Dolly would be in your life. "I can help you find what you've been searching for," she brags with stunning boldness. No bashful lady, she.

It's hard to call Coat of Many Colors a country record; it's so much more than that. But every song has its roots in Americana, in the humble hollows of the Appalachians and the songs and tunes passed down through God, through love and through sorrow. Dolly knows all of these. She sings from experience — "Traveling Man" and "My Blue Tears" (which can make you weep from its beauty) — and it's one she boldly shares. Dolly's career has been incredible in its longevity and its sincerity. And even amidst all of her success, this is her best moment.

Who needs the Blue Ridge Mountains when you've got Laurel Canyon to call home? The Byrds' brief mutation into a country band was a masterstroke, a de facto coup of what had once been America's most loved '60s band (and indeed, when people talk about "the '60s sound" they almost always mean the Byrds, whether they know it or not). Coming off Notorious Byrd Brothers, a wonderful album that was essentially a Roger McGuinn solo record, the Byrds' trademark jangle had lost a bit of its shine now that David Crosby had left the band. The dynamics that had made the early Byrds singles such big successes were now missing, even with the incredibly talented Chris Hillman as McGuinn's still-partner.

Searching for a new Byrd, Hillman and McGuinn came upon Gram Parsons, a young guitarist who had previously fronted a group called the International Submarine Band. Hillman found a kindred spirit in Gram (they would play together for the rest of Gram's brief life), and together they replaced the Byrds' famous jangle with a pronounced twang, displaying not only a significant stylistic shift, but also adeptly anticipating the return-to-nature movement that was developing in the anti-war and hippie movements.

Faced with the enormous bummers of the world in 1968, something simple and homespun like the Louvin Brothers' "The Christian Life" or a standard like "I Am a Pilgrim" could not have sounded more comforting. The politics of the choices are fascinating: the immediate assumption is that these are ironic performances, yet they are played straight, and wonderfully so. The message, then, becomes the simplicity that these songs evoke, a world free from complication — complication obviously being the kind of thing suits and normal life traffics in.

While Sweetheart is rightly held as a classic, it is not perfect. The album is definitely frontloaded: the first three songs (Dylan's "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" (pure perfection), "Pilgrim" and "Christian Life") are as good as any album ever made. Ever. But the album does drag a bit by the end, and stuff like "Blue Canadian Rockies" is filler at best. Still, this album is a classic and an icon.

Are the Beatles the only major '60s band not to do a country record? (And does George's All Things Must Pass count?) Muswell Hillbillies is not the Kinks' best record by any measure (that would be Arthur or Village Green or Lola or Something Else or or or), and it's honestly not even all that country. It is, however, rootsy (an important distinction), and it has "Holiday," a beautiful, lackadaisical ditty that perfectly — and boy do I mean perfectly — filters Ray Davies' Tin Pan Ally heart with a folksy Americana charm. Like most of this record, it's unbeatable.

The masters and originators, from whence all this comes. As tricky a topic authenticity can be, it's clear-cut when it comes to the Carter Family: they didn't have to sell these songs; they lived them. We picked this collection for two songs and two songs alone: "Hello Stranger" and "You Are My Flower." "Hello Stranger" is half-country blues, this little shuffle of a love song that's all heartfelt, earnest awkwardness ("you are a stranger but you're a pal of mine") and this beautiful, slightly swaying melody. It'll knock you to the floor. "You Are My Flower" is more sure of itself, confident in its love and possession. But still, there's a slight melancholy tone, the harmonies — as they always are — a bit braying, just slightly and perfectly sour. The rest of this compilation covers a lot of territory. Play some samples and see what's to your liking, but don't leave without either of these.

Hank Williams' honky-tonk style has been pervasive in country music for the entirety of its existence. The whole cliché about country songs being about drinking and getting dumped and your dog running away with the pickup? Those start here, but there's a good reason why those themes have been repeated so often: when sung by a master like Hank, they are persuasive and they sound cool as shit. The songs you know (and didn't know you knew) are here, like "Hey Good Lookin'" and "Jambalaya" and "Your Cheatin' Heart." There's also the incredible "Mansion on the Hill" — the first incarnation of Dolly's "Coat of Many Colors" origin-story — and "Lost Highway," the beginning of country's outlaw myth, which filtered all the way from Hank to the Stones and the Byrds and Ryan Adams and everyone since. The only track this record is missing is "Cool Water," an oddball Hank tune that can bring me to tears. But even without that (admittedly petty) omission, this is essential stuff.

Admittedly a stretch, but we'll use any excuse to discuss this overlooked classic. Nastasia is a Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter, and her style is an interesting one: complex without seeming complicated, dramatic while reserved, avant-garde but traditional. This album, a collaboration with the avant-garde percussionist Jim White, is perhaps the indie version of Dolly's Little Sparrow, the bluegrass records she released for a time.

Spare but unsparing, On Leaving collects relationship songs, Nastasia's voice stronger than she shows, her guitar playing (and writing) obviously impeccable. "Why Don't You Stay Home" is meditative and beautiful ("why don't you stay home where you're loved?"), a song built on the confident foundation of Dolly's "Here I Am" but fronting just a bit, too. It's incredibly human, more than anything.

And there is also, to the blessing and benefit of us all, "Brad Haunts a Party." It will be tough for me to explain how much this song means to me and why, but I can clumsily start by pointing out that its brief two minutes start from a semicolon, this half-idea that you are already kicked into hard and fast and it's this enormous weight of depression and hope (Real? False?) and death and I don't know what else. White's drums never stop tumbling, the piano hammers at its keys with the certainty of a death march and the narrative about this weird party at night in the middle of nowhere is so memorable, so obliquely specific and perfect that I know every word by heart. Please give it a listen.