Dolly does it for the kids

Photo: Getty Images

My very first crush was on Dolly Parton. (My second crush was David Bowie in Labyrinth, to be fair.) I was 7 and obsessed with her short-lived variety show. I kept a pin my parents bought me at her concert on my bedside table like a religious icon. It was a square photo of Dolly at her cheesiest, in a topaz rhinestone blouse bursting at the chest, with oversized shoulder pads that supported miles of platinum blonde curls.  Of course I became a Dolly fan just at the time that the country music industry abandoned her, as label execs decided to jettison older artists to appeal to a younger demographic. 

In the years since then, Dolly has had a second critically acclaimed career writing traditional mountain music, joining artists like Gillian Welch in spurring on the bluegrass revival movement. Backwoods Barbie, out yesterday, is her first mainstream country album in nearly two decades (and the first on her own label). It's a delightful synthesis of both Dollys: the showgal in rhinestones and the mountain girl singer-storyteller she's always been.

Part of the fun of the latest album is that it continues to show Parton's growth as a songwriter. At 62, her longevity is due to her ability to wrap personal stories of tragedy in a commercial gloss. The title song is basically a drag queen's anthem (of drag queens who dress up as Dolly, she's said they "look more like me than I ever could") as she croons "but don't be fooled by thinking that the goods are not all there, I'm just a Backwoods Barbie in a push-up bra and heels. I might look artificial, but where it counts, I'm real."

But the best part of the album comes in two straight-up country rock anthems. The first, "Jesus & Gravity," is Dolly at her best, confessing that she's "as bad as anyone" but attributing "something lifting me up, something holding me down" to her success, backed by driving guitars and a gospel choir, of course. It's a sly commentary on the necessity of both religion and science.

The second anthem, "Better Get To Livin'" has already received significant airplay and the video for the song features Amys Poehler and Sedaris in cameos. It's an unsubtle, feel-good-feminist reminder that the Dixie Chicks and Shania Twain would never have happened without Dolly. The song espouses Parton's philosophy of life: When "your life's a wreck, your house is a mess and your wardrobe way outdated," you pick yourself up and keep on going. And even though we're both much older, my schoolboy crush still knows how to tug at my heart.

-- JAPHY GRANT

Previously > Dolly tells the Man to stick it > Fergie and Charlotte Church do "9 to 5"

Comments

[samantha]

does dollyparton have kids of her own