Dolly Parton - Essential Dolly Parton
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Dolly PartonEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2005-06-28
Music Label: RCA
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Dumb Blonde
- Just Because I'm A Woman
- My Blue Ridge Mountain Boy
- Mule Skinner Blues (Blue Yodel No.8)
- Joshua
- Coat Of Many Colors
- Touch Your Woman
- My Tennessee Mountain Home
- Jolene
- Please Don't Stop Loving Me
- I Will Always Love You
- Love Is Like A Butterfly
- The Bargain Store
- The Seeker
- We Used To
- All I Can Do
- Light Of A Clear Blue Morning
- It's All Wrong, But It's All Right
- Here You Come Again
- Two Doors Down
- Heartbreaker
- I Really Got The Feeling
- You're The Only One
- Starting Over Again
- Old Flames Can't Hold A Candle To You
- 9 To 5
- But You Know I Love You
- Single Women
- Hearbreak Express
- Islands In The Stream
- Save The Last Dance For Me
- Tennessee Homesick Blues
- God Won't Get You
- To Know Him Is To Love Him
- Why'd You Come In Here Lookin' Like That
- Rockin' Years
- Shine
Free Music Notes for Essential Dolly Parton
Free Music Review: Best overview yet, but how about a box set?
Hit: 5 Stars
With the recent merging of RCA/BMG and Sony/Columbia, the vast majority of Dolly Parton's catalog is now owned by one company. A comprehensive retrospective of Parton's best work is now possible but this 37-track, two-disc set - while the best overview yet put together on Parton - is still far from definitive.
The Essential Dolly Parton begins with Parton's first single for the Monument (a Sony subsidiary) label, the 1967 hit "Dumb Blonde." It's a shame its follow-up "Something Fishy" wasn't included here as well. Still in 1967, Parton moved over to the RCA label with the help of her new mentor Porter Wagoner and it is here that Parton recorded her best work over the next 8-10 years, the most consistent work by a female singer-songwriter in country music history. Highlights of this period fill up the rest of disc one and include the colorful, uptempo sagas of crusty "Joshua" and that tramp "Jolene," as well as the simple but effective devotionals "I Will Always Love You" and "Love Is Like A Butterfly," and most endearingly, the ruminations of Parton's youth on "My Tennessee Mountain Home" and "Coat Of Many Colors" (probably her best composition ever). Also included from this era is her biggest hit with longtime duet partner Wagoner, "Please Don't Stop Loving Me" (I prefer their heartbreaker "If Teardrops Were Pennies"). From this period, I would have also included her humorous romp "Travelin' Man" and the tragic tale "Down From Dover."
Disc two leads off with "Here You Come Again" and "Two Doors Down" from 1978, and it is at this point that Parton went pop for awhile. The five tracks that follow like "Starting Over Again" and "You're The Only One," are sluggish, bland middle of the road soundalikes - usually written by others - that failed to exploit her immense personality. Thankfully, the collection emerges from this sonic coma with Parton's spunky, self-penned "9 To 5" (1980) and the delightful yodelfest "Tennessee Homesick Blues" (1984). Mid-80s collaborations with Kenny Rogers on "Islands In The Stream" plus Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris on "To Know Him Is To Love Him" (the exquisite Parton-featured "Wild Flowers" should be here, not this ordinary, Harris-led effort) amply exhibit Parton's harmonizing skills, while other country chart-toppers from this period - the Rogers' duet "Real Love," the enchanting "Think About Love" - are inexplicably omitted from this set, along with my gaudy favorite "Potential New Boyfriend."
In 1988, Parton moved from RCA over to Columbia. Her relatively lengthy tenure there - six albums - is represented only by the chart-toppers "Why'd You Come In Here Lookin' Like That" and "Rockin' Years," the latter a beautiful collaboration with Ricky Van Shelton. Several other Columbia singles should have been included as well, such as the gentle number one "Yellow Roses" and the gorgeous inspirational epic "He's Alive." The set then concludes with her poignant remake of Collective Soul's "Shine" from 2001's Little Sparrow album, the lone representative of her recent foray into bluegrass music (I would have included at least half a dozen more tracks from her fantastic Grass Is Blue/Little Sparrow/Halos and Horns trilogy).
There was room for about another ten tracks which if added could have made this collection live up to its name. Instead, we will go on praying for a Parton box set containing at least four jam-packed discs as well as the cd reissuing of her early RCA albums.
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