Dolly was the better Barbie (Backwoods version) back in 2008 – and also rock’n’roll when she was still singing country. Or the other way around. Robert Christgau wrote about “Coat Of Many Colors” that there is no longer so much “genius of purity” in rock. Hardly that much (self-)irony. Stupid jokes about stupid blondes? Pah! She knows that she is not stupid. “I also know I’m not blonde.” The tabloid queen? Well, she developed “a certain pride” as the queen of everything. “I just want to be the queen.”
It’s all a bit too much and arbitrary
Inevitably, at 77, Dolly Parton now sings Queen (you guessed what), plus 29 (!) other songs, including a guest list of 40 plus (number, not age), more diverse than ever again. There are also five cover motifs. It’s all a bit too much and arbitrary. But you can also see this 4-LP/2-CD set as the crowning act of a grandiose self-empowerment that began a good fifty years ago when she broke away from her mentor Porter Wagoner. Dolly sees the “Rock” category generously: “Heart Of Glass” (very dispensable)? “Every Breath You Take”? “Long As I Can See The Light” (very nice with John Fogerty)? Or she takes what rock ‘n’ roll became straight home to Tennessee, where Simon Le Bon helps her (very passably) re-read her classic “My Blue Tears.”
It’s touching how Parton plays rock but never completely escapes the country twang (“I Hate Myself For Loving You” with Joan Jett). “Tried To Rock And Roll Me” proves that her voice has aged better than Melissa Etheridge’s. The songwriter Dolly Parton must disappear behind this “rock star” incarnation. It was always most relevant when it didn’t want to be. If only she celebrated her mother’s patchwork coat. Or who begged Jolene not to take her husband just because she can.
She remains most relevant when she continues, as she did with Rob Halford, of all people, in the relationship guide “Bygones”. Mick Jagger had to cancel “Satisfaction” due to scheduling reasons, and Jimmy Page and Robert Plant had to cancel “Stairway To Heaven” not only due to scheduling reasons. Both are probably a good thing. Even Dolly Parton doesn’t get everyone and everything. So comforting to us common mortals.
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