Bebe Rexha released her third studio album, Bebe, on Friday, April 28. The album's closing track, "Seasons", a duet with Dolly, was issued as a single the same day, alongside its music video. The black and white video compliments the song perfectly. Check it out below! Vestal Goodman's 1999 duet with Dolly on "Satisfied" from her Vestal & Friends album was reissued digitally on Friday also. This marks the song's first availability on digital platforms. Listen to it below!
Image credit: musicman56 at 45cat.com April 24, 1989: "Why'd You Come in Here Lookin’ Like That" is released as the first single from Dolly's twenty-ninth solo studio album, White Limozeen. The single peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. Image credit: 45stalker at 45cat.com April 26, 1976: "Is Forever Longer Than Always" is released as a stand-alone single. It would be Porter and Dolly's final duet single until 1980. It peaked at number eight on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. Image credit: Beatlefan at discogs.com April 29, 1985: "Real Love", a duet with Kenny Rogers, is released as the second single from Dolly's album of the same name, her twenty-seventh solo studio album. The single peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. April 30, 1973: "Traveling Man" is released as the only single from Dolly's twelfth solo studio album, Bubbling Over. A re-recording of a song Dolly had written and originally recorded for her 1971 album, Coat of Many Colors, the single peaked at number 20 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.
by Ben Childers The first record in Dolly's 'Vinyl Me, Parton' subscription is her autobiographical 1973 album, My Tennessee Mountain Home. I received the record yesterday and it is stunning! The packaging is top notch and exceeds all expectations. The cover art is crisp a welcome upgrade to my original 1973 copy. Pressed on 180g Smoky Mountain Galaxy colored vinyl, the LP is vibrant and the audio is breathtakingly clear, thanks to remastering by Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound. Check out the unboxing video at the end of this review! My Tennessee Mountain Home is the perfect record to begin the 'Vinyl Me, Parton' subscription. The album, which celebrated its 50th anniversary on April 2, serves as a simultaneous introduction to both Dolly the artist and Dolly the person. Coincidentally, this month also marks 10 years since I fell in love with Dolly (after having gone to Dollywood several times throughout my youth and even seeing Dolly in a parade there). When I first immersed myself in Dolly's music I "inherited" (i.e. "pilfered and claimed as mine") several of her records from my grandparents record collection. Among those records was an original 1973 pressing of My Tennessee Mountain Home. I remember listening to this album for the first time in my small apartment in Oxford. The record took me on a journey through Dolly's formative years in the Smokies and once I had finished listening, I had a better understanding of who Dolly is. I could visualize it all, from the pain of leaving her home to pursue her dreams in Nashville to her mama's old black kettle and her daddy's working boots to her appreciation of how the bad times helped shape her as a person. The album opens with a spoken word track titled "The Letter", which is the first letter Dolly wrote back home to her parents after leaving for Nashville the day after her high school graduation. The letter sees Dolly telling her parents that she made it to Nashville okay, even though she is homesick for them and her noisy siblings. It paints a picture of a determined young woman ready to chase her dreams. This is followed by "I Remember", a song about Dolly's reminiscences of her parents during her childhood. She sings of remembering her mama's homemade gingerbread, her daddy's homemade toys, and how her parents filled the small home with love. The third track is "Old Black Kettle" and it follows in the same vein as the previous song, with Dolly reminiscing on moments and experiences from her childhood, specifically her mother cooking in an old black kettle on a stove with a broken door that had to be held closed with a "fork-ed" stick, which was eventually replaced with an electric range. The next track is dedicated to Dolly's dad, who she has often referred to as the smartest man she's ever known, despite the fact that he could not read or write. "Daddy's Working Boots" is an ode to her hard-working father and how the wear and tear on his boots are evidence to his hard work to support his family. Track 5 is dedicated to Dr. Robert F. Thomas and concludes Dolly's dedications to the most important figures in her life. Dr. Thomas delivered Dolly and was paid with a bag of cornmeal (and as Dolly says, she's "been raking in the dough ever since!"). The song tells how he delivered babies and cared for the people in East Tennessee, even when he had to travel by horseback or on foot to reach those who lived way back in the mountains where there were no roads. A re-recording of her 1969 single, "In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)", from the album of the same name, follows. In the song Dolly states that while she is thankful for the bad times, no amount of money could convince her to go back and live through them again. Side two begins with the album's title track (and only single), "My Tennessee Mountain Home". The centerpiece of this concept album, it paints a beautiful picture of what a typical day was like for a young Dolly. The song makes mention of honeysuckle vines, eagles, songbirds, church, and porch swings. "The Wrong Direction Home" is sung by a homesick Dolly reminiscing on her mountain home, while having the go in the "wrong direction home" to follow her dreams. The next song, "Back Home", is about exactly what it sounds like. In the song Dolly is going back home to visit her parents in the Smokies after having been gone for some time. The penultimate track, "The Better Part of Life", calls back to the themes of "In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)". The track shows Dolly feeling nostalgic for the swimming holes, possum grapes, and muscadines of her childhood. The album closes with "Down on Music Row", which recounts Dolly's first days in Nashville. She describes eating a stale sweet roll outside RCA, washing her face in the fountain at the Country Music Hall of Fame, and being turned down by record executives' secretaries who suggested she leave a tape and not wait to see them in person. The song even includes shout-outs to Chet Atkins and Bob Ferguson, who helped Dolly along her way to stardom. The album's cover was photographed by Dolly's uncle, Louis Owens, and depicts the house the Parton's lived in during the late 1940s and early 1950s. They had moved to another home by the time Dolly was in the third or fourth grade. The home was built in 1901. Dolly bought the property in 1987 and filmed a segment for her 1987 TV series on the front porch with her parents prior to restoring the home. The restored home can be seen briefly in Dolly’s 1990 TV Special, Christmas at Home. Overall, this ranks as one of Dolly's best albums from the early part of her career. She wrote every track on the album and it serves as an introduction to what Dolly is all about. If someone asked me what albums I would recommend to someone who had never heard a Dolly Parton album before, this album would definitely be among them. The album was produced by Bob Ferguson. Her parents, Lee and Avielee Parton, wrote the original liner notes. The 'Vinyl Me, Parton' re-issue includes new liner notes by Amileah Sutliff (available online through the Vinyl Me, Please website). Next month will see the first-ever vinyl release of Dolly's 2001 bluegrass album, Little Sparrow! If you haven't already, sign-up for Vinyl Me, Parton today! Ben Childers is the administrator of The Dolly Parton Discography. A native of Tupelo, Mississippi, he grew up taking family vacations to the Smokies and Dollywood. His love for Dolly and her music reached a fanatical level in April 2013. After spending countless hours researching and cataloging Dolly's musical output, he decided to open a website dedicated to her discography. April 17, 1999: Dolly released her thirty-sixth solo studio album, Precious Memories. Released on opening day of Dollywood's 14th season, the album was sold exclusively at the park with all proceeds going to the Dollywood Foundation. To promote the album, Dolly hosted a television special on TNN where she performed many of the songs from the album. April 18, 2000: Johnny Russell released his Actin' Naturally album. The album features a duet with Dolly on "Making Plans", a song written by Russell which Dolly had previously recorded with Porter Wagoner (1980) and later Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt (1987). April 19, 2014: The 45 single of "Home" / "Blue Smoke" is released for Record Store Day 2014. It was limited to 3,500 copies.
by Ben Childers Today marks 10 years since I fell in love with Dolly and her music. Although I grew up taking vacations with my family to the Smokies and Dollywood, I didn't discover Dolly's catalog of music until years later. My first trip to the Smokies was in 1992 when I was almost two years old, and again in 1993. My little sister, Sarah, was born in 1994, so we didn't make it back to the Smokies again until June 1997. That was the first year we went to Dollywood. We returned again in 2001 (with my grandparents, an aunt, and cousin in tow!), 2005, 2006, and 2008. What I remember about those trips was how much I loved the Tennessee Tornado rollercoaster. Once my sister was big enough to ride it with me we rode it over and over again! During our 2006 trip we got to see Dolly in a parade through the park. This was the first time I saw Dolly in person (not that I was excited or impressed by the sighting). I wasn't too big on country music through middle school and high school. I had a burned CD of Dolly's greatest hits at some point in high school (not sure where it came from), and I had "9 to 5" and "Jolene" in rotation on mixed CDs in college. I'm not sure why, but on the night of April 12, 2013, I was sitting in my bedroom on iTunes and I stumbled upon Dolly's 2011 single, "Together You and I", from the Better Day album. I bought the single and immediately purchased the Ultimate Dolly Parton compilation from 2003 on iTunes also. I was HOOKED! CDs for older albums were already becoming harder to find in 2013, but I found copies of An Evening with...Dolly LIVE and Backwoods Barbie at Cracker Barrel and Better Day at Best Buy. My Dolly collection had begun. I was working as a manager for a movie theatre at the time and moved to Oxford in the fall of 2013. It was around this time that I "inherited" (i.e. pilfered and claimed as mine) several of Dolly's albums on vinyl from my grandparents collection which was in my parents attic. In December of that year Dolly was gearing up for the release of Blue Smoke. I ordered in import copy from Australia, since the album was released four months earlier there than the USA, and I couldn't wait to hear it! I attended the Blue Smoke tour stop in Knoxville with two of my friends and made my first trip back to the Smokies as an adult. Dollywood was a whole new experience. The park had grown so much since 2008, but it was also my first trip back as a Dolly fanatic. Since then I've made it to the Smokies almost every year. During the years that followed I began researching, making spreadsheets, and cataloging all of Dolly's released recordings, and with six decades to cover that was no small task! 2016 saw the release of Pure & Simple (on my birthday!) and I attended the tour stop in North Little Rock, Arkansas, with my sister. I moved back to Tupelo in the summer of 2017, and by this point I had nearly all of Dolly's albums that were available on vinyl and CD. I knew I wanted to share my knowledge of Dolly's extensive catalog with other fans, but it took me several years to decide on how to do that. I finally decided during the summer of 2021 that the best way to do this would be to build a website dedicated to Dolly's musical output and The Dolly Parton Discography was born. I hope this website will help other Dolly fans explore and learn more about Dolly's discography. It has been a labor of love. Ben Childers is the administrator of The Dolly Parton Discography. A native of Tupelo, Mississippi, he grew up taking family vacations to the Smokies and Dollywood. His love for Dolly and her music reached a fanatical level in April 2013. After spending countless hours researching and cataloging Dolly's musical output, he decided to open a website dedicated to her discography. |
AdministratorBen Childers is the administrator of The Dolly Parton Discography. A native of Tupelo, Mississippi, he grew up taking family vacations to the Smokies and Dollywood. His love for Dolly and her music reached a fanatical level in April 2013. After spending countless hours researching and cataloging Dolly's musical output, he decided to open a website dedicated to her discography. Archives
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