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Dolly Parton & Family: Smoky Mountain DNA: Family, Faith and Fables review – Dolly digs deep
Ranging from archive recordings sung with departed elders to new tracks made with young relatives, the country star’s latest project is nothing if not exhaustive
Combining archival, overdubs and new recordings, it takes us on a lengthy journey that begins in 1964 with Parton’s fiddle-playing grandfather, the Rev Jake Owens, on I Live in Glory, and ends with a Disney-lite ballad, Randy Floyd, written and sung by Parton and her teenage great-niece Merin Seaver. Parton’s 1970s duet with her aunt Dorothy Jo Owens on the latter’s Runaway Girl, or the newly gospel-backed Singing His Praise/ Daddy Was an Old Time Preacher Man medley, sung in 2011 alongside her uncles Bill and Louis Owens, offer a window into the musical heritage that made the star. However, by the time we reach today’s series of young hopefuls and vaguely musical cousins, it all just feels like an exercise in well-meaning nepotism.
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