[title subtitle=”review: Marla Cantrell”][/title]

Dolly Parton: $12

Dolly Parton explores her ties to her Tennessee home in her forty-second studio album, Blue Smoke. The sixty-eight-year-old, pint-sized beauty (she’s not quite five feet tall), has been recording since she was thirteen, and some of her best work is on this collection, with its mountain music, bluegrass, and traditional country. It doesn’t hurt that there are also two duets: one with Kenny Rogers and another with Willie Nelson.

One of the standout tracks is “Home,” a song about missing the place she left at seventeen. She sings about longing for her old front porch swing, the old songs she grew up hearing, the old fishing hole that calls her back.

Another stellar selection is the title track, “Blue Smoke.” On it, she sings about leaving a man who did her wrong. “I left the station straight up midnight./Feelin’ lonely, lost and blue./In a trail of blue smoke with my heart broke I said good-bye to you.” The song is quintessential Dolly, the writing spectacular, the backup singers sounding like the four-part harmony sung in country churches every Sunday.

The most surprising number is “Don’t Think Twice,” written by Bob Dylan in 1962. When he sang it, it came off as a melancholy tune about a man leaving a woman who barely understands what went wrong. Dolly’s rendition turns the song into a triumphant number about a woman who’s walking away from a relationship that would likely drag her down if she stayed.

The duet with Kenny Rogers, “You Can’t Make Old Friends,” is a beautiful, sentimental number. The two, best known for their earlier collaboration on “Islands In The Stream,” ask the question: “What will I do when you’re gone?/Who’s gonna tell me the truth?” Their voices work perfectly together, and the emotion rings true. The same can be said for “From Here To The Moon And Back,” the duet Dolly sings with Willie Nelson. There is something brilliant about long-lasting friendship, about loving people who finish your sentences, who have your back no matter what.

If there’s a misstep on this album it is “Lover Du Jour,” a fun little number Dolly wrote, with a few French lines in it, which she butchers about like I would. Dolly, actress, amusement park owner, founder of the Imagination Library for kids, can do whatever she wants, but there are some things she just shouldn’t.

In a recent interview, Dolly talked about this album, and her intent to keep producing music as long as she can. She also spoke about her rags to riches story, and the home she left in Locust Ridge, Tennessee, just after she graduated from high school, when she headed to Nashville. Her mother told her she could always come home, and that was a great comfort to her. But once she was there, she met a man named Carl Dean at the Wishy Washy Laundromat. They married in 1966, and are still married today.

As for her looks, she claims she had no idea what glamour was so she started fixing herself up like the tramp from her hometown: tight skirts, big blonde hair. Whatever she did, it certainly worked, although it’s not her looks that make her one of the best country artists of all time. It’s her talent, pure and simple.

About ten years ago she told a reporter that she had to get rich to sing the songs she wanted to sing. She likely meant the bluegrass-infused music that features the kind of gospel harmony she grew up singing. This album is certainly that music. And it’s incredibly good.

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