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Betrayal, bluegrass and Backwoods Barbie: Dolly Parton’s 20 best songs – ranked!
Fifty years after Parton released the album Jolene, we assess a catalogue that spans country, Christianity and weirdly chilling ballads
The Parton-meets-Sylvester Stallone movie Rhinestone was a critical and commercial disaster: this song was the only thing that emerged unscathed from its wreckage, with its Bob Dylan-referencing title, get-me-out-of-New-York lyrics and a sound where Parton’s Appalachian roots – complete with the occasional burst of yodelling – scratch against the slick production. The glorious title track from a concept album drawing on Parton’s childhood, My Tennessee Mountain Home is less concerned with depicting the poverty of her upbringing (cf In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)) than celebrating its simplicity: the mood of the music follows suit, building from stark to gleefully rousing. Photograph: Beth Gwinn/Redferns Intended by the Bee Gees as a Motown-inspired duet in the style of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, Islands in the Stream was transformed by Parton and the late Kenny Rogers: the songwriting is the Gibb brothers at the their most bulletproof, but the warmth of the vocals makes it.
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