Dolly Parton: Halos and Horns (Shock)

 |   |  <1 min read

Dolly Parton: Halos and Horns (Shock)

Dolly Parton has enjoyed a critical reappraisal these past few years for her excellent bluegrass and back-porch albums The Grass is Blue and Little Sparrow. She turned down that blowtorch voice and went back to her origins in traditional country, but also bought into the style of songs by Billy Joel, Steve Young and Cole Porter.

On paper that looks like an appalling mix, but Parton's smarts, the consistency of tone and the deep subtexts of guilt and redemption made them revelatory albums - even if you didn't like country or bluegrass.

Here she continues to explore a similar emotional terrain (the aching spiritual loneliness of Not For Me and her direct address to her maker on the sonic swell of Hello God), revisits a few personal pieces from her history in a bluegrass style, and offers a couple of unexpected and alarmingly good covers: Bread's warhorse If comes off as heartfelt, and she also offers a reconfigured (with banjo) and lyrically rewritten version of Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven.

She also gets saucy on Sugar Hill (sensuality still interests Dolly), and amid the earnestness you can feel she hasn't lost her humour, although for the apocalyptic Raven Dove and Stairway she effectively brings out that blowtorch again.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

Richard Walters: AM (pilotlights)

Richard Walters: AM (pilotlights)

This emotion-driven English singer-songwriter who works in the world of electronica-cum-balladry delivered one of Elsewhere's favourite albums in 2010, The Animal. His milieu is an area which... > Read more

Durand Jones and the Indications: Private Space (Dead Oceans/digital outlets)

Durand Jones and the Indications: Private Space (Dead Oceans/digital outlets)

This beautifully slinky, synth-soul album slips around you like a comfort blanket from the glorious opener Love Will Work It Out through to the final falsetto soul of I Can See. But don't be... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Neill Fraser of Villainy

THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Neill Fraser of Villainy

Auckland alt.rock band Villainy scored a major coup for the cover of their debut album Mode Set Clear -- see below -- they had the famous Storm Thorgerson (renown for his Pink Floyd album artwork)... > Read more

THE GOSDEN YEARS by BILL GOSDEN. Ed. GAYLENE PRESTON and TIM WONG

THE GOSDEN YEARS by BILL GOSDEN. Ed. GAYLENE PRESTON and TIM WONG

When Bill Gosden received a cancer diagnosis in June 2017 he was encouraged by friends and colleagues to write a memoir about his remarkable career. Gosden – who had been at the helm of... > Read more