If the image of Dolly Parton was to be carved in stone atop a great mountain in her native East Tennessee hills, it would be a worthy honor among the hundreds of honors and awards she has already received. Her numerous accomplishments over the past 50 years have reflected her roles as a singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, worldwide touring artist, Hollywood actor and tv personality, Broadway entrepreneur, author, amusement theme park owner, celebrated philanthropist, and more.Not the least of those accomplishments is her litany of hit songs and signature compositions. Dolly Parton is distinguished for having charted at least one Top 5 country hit in each decade since the '60s. She has also charted at least one #1 country hit (if not a dozen) in each decade from the '70s to the '00s: "Joshua," "Jolene," "I Will Always Love You," "Love Is Like A Butterfly," "Here You Come Again," and many more in the '70s; "Starting Over Again," the Grammy Award-winning "9 To 5," "Islands In The Stream" (with Kenny Rogers), "Tennessee Homesick Blues," "Why'd You Come In Here Lookin' Like That," and many more in the '80s; "Rockin' Years" (with Ricky Van Shelton) in 1991; and "When I Get Where I'm Going" (with Brad Paisley) in 2005.
Now a unique new honor comes her way with the simply-titled "Dolly," the first multi-CD, multi-label deluxe box set compilation ever to represent her life's work, comprising 99 songs over four CDs. "Dolly" will be available at all physical and digital retail outlets starting October 27th through RCA Nashville/Legacy, a division of SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT. The set is also available for pre-order at www.shopdolly.com.
The elegant package designed for "Dolly" houses a full-color 60-page booklet with never-before-seen photographs and rare memorabilia. A brief and loving introduction has been written by Nashville-bred singer-songwriter Laura Cantrell. An extensive 5,000-word biographical essay follows, by ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award-winning writer-editor-producer-lecturer Holly George-Warren. Her recent books include Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry; The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: The First 25 Years; and The Road to Woodstock (with Michael Lang). She has written liner notes for dozens of rock and country anthologies and box sets, many of them on Legacy, including June Carter Cash's Keep On The Sunny Side: Her Life in Music (2005), Johnny Cash at Madison Square Garden (2002) and the reissue of Uncle Tupelo's Still Feel Gone (2003).
Earlier this year, in March 2009, one week prior to the eagerly-anticipated Broadway opening of 9 To 5: The Musical at the Marriott Marquis Theatre, RCA Nashville/Legacy released a new expanded edition of 1980's 9 To 5 And Odd Jobs - with three bonus tracks, two of them previously unreleased.
"Dolly" continues to explore the broad range and depth of her recording career - from the rarely-heard sides cut at age 11 for the Louisiana-based Goldband indie label, and at age 16 for Mercury in Nashville, through her whirlwind two years (and first chart records) with Monument (1965-67), her record-setting near two-decade stay with RCA Records (1967-85, underpinning her long hitmaking association with Porter Wagoner), and another near-decade at Columbia into the '90s.
In addition, seven previously unreleased tracks make their historic debuts on this box set:
• "Gonna Hurry (As Slow As I Can)" - demo circa 1957-62, co-written with her uncle Bill Owens, a formative figure in Dolly's early musical evolution;
• "Nobody But You" (with the Merry Melody Singers) - from the same 1962 Nashville sessions that produced Dolly's Mercury single "It's Sure Gonna Hurt" b/w "The Love You Gave," both songs also included on this box set;
• "I've Known You All My Life" - a virtually unknown Goffin-King song (cut by the Four Preps) from the same November 1965 sessions at Monument as "Don't Drop Out," produced and arranged by Ray Stevens;
• "Everything Is Beautiful (In Its Own Way)" - an original composition, from the fall 1969 sessions at RCA Studios Nashville for The Fairest Of Them All;
• "God's Coloring Book" - an original, thematically related to "Coat Of Many Colors," from the same April 1971 sessions which produced that LP;
• "Eugene Oregon" and "What Will Baby Be" - both original compositions, from the RCA Studios Nashville sessions of December 1972, for My Tennessee Mountain Home.
The phenomenal chart statistics that Dolly Parton has accumulated come alive on "Dolly." She is the top-ranked female (by far!) among Joel Whitburn's all-time Top 10 artists for most overall country chart hits (113), most Top 40 country hits (87), most Top 10 hits (57), most #1 hits (25), and the most pop crossover hits (25).
Of the 99 tracks on "Dolly," one is not a Dolly Parton recording: "Put It Off Until Tomorrow" by Bill Phillips on Decca, 1965, is significant because it was the first composition by 19-year old Dolly (co-written with her uncle Bill Owens) that actually hit the charts, earning Dolly her first BMI songwriting award. This was during Dolly's first year at Monument Records, when owner Fred Foster was trying to position her as a teen pop star with her first couple of singles, "Busy Signal," and "Don't Drop Out" ("a kind of 'Leader Of The Pack' meets 'He's A Rebel'," writes Holly George-Warren). Dolly even appeared on American Bandstand.
Her first Monument pop singles didn't chart, but when Phillips' "Put It Off Until Tomorrow" clicked at country radio, Dolly was able to convince Foster to let her sing country music her way. The cheeky single "Dumb Blonde" (not!) was the result, followed by "Something Fishy," as Dolly scored her first two solid country chart hits. (Dolly married her husband Carl during this period as well, in 1966.) It was the success of those two songs that got the attention of RCA Victor country star Porter Wagoner.
After six years as Porter's "girl singer" partner on his syndicated tv show, the popular Norma Jean was getting married and retiring, and needed to be replaced. Porter offered Dolly a $60,000 annual salary to join him on tv. Along with their duets on the show, RCA wanted Porter and Dolly to record together. Dolly was reluctantly forced to leave Monument, but the RCA deal immediately hit paydirt in 1967, with the duet version of folksinger Tom Paxton's "Last Thing On My Mind."
More than 20 of Porter and Dolly's duets hit the country chart - and 11 of them are featured on DOLLY:
• 1967: "Last Thing On My Mind";
• 1968: "Holdin' On To Nothin'," "We'll Get Ahead Someday," "Jeannie's Afraid Of The Dark";
• 1969: "Just Someone That I Used To Know";
• 1970: "Tomorrow Is Forever," "Daddy Was An Old Time Preacher Man";
• 1971: "Better Move It On Home";
• 1972: "Together Always," "Lost Forever In Your Kiss";
• 1974: "Please Don't Stop Loving Me."
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