No pun intended, but Dolly Parton cuts a striking figure in country music. Growing up destitute in the mountains of West Tennessee, she showed a strong musical talent as a child and cut her first record before she was a teenager. Since then, she has recorded frequently and adventurously, surveying a wide swath of American music that ranges from country and bluegrass to pop, soul, and gospel. Her music is as luxurious as her image, full of downhome details, spry vocal performances, and a surfeit of personality. She has songs that will make you cry, others that will make you smile, some that will (yes) get you laid, and many that will make you cringe. So, taken as a half-century whole, her long career as both a musician and an icon seems as large and as unwieldy as her 60s beehive. More than even Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, or Porter Wagoner, Parton is an awkward fit for an easy, straightforward retrospective.

Dolly is not the first attempt to box Parton's career, but it may be the best. It covers nearly half a century of successes and failures, making room for the big hits (Jolene, 9 to 5) as well as previously unreleased obscurities Gonna Hurry (As Slow As I Can), Eugene Oregon. Even at twelve years old, singing Puppy Love, she displays remarkable self-possession, delivering the throwaway pop ditty with surprising sass and confidence. She was Dolly even then, and she remained Dolly when she tried the pop circuit, when she was Wagoner's effervescent sidekick, when she set off on her own, when she appeared in movies, and when she went bluegrass late in her career. She has always been ineffably Dolly: a one-woman genre.

Dolly hints at the full breadth of her range as well as her limitations. Even though she presented herself as happy-go-lucky, with a perky spirit that turned the trials of an impoverished upbringing into a goldmine of nostalgia, Parton slipped easily into sentimental kitsch, especially during her early twenties. In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad) and Coat of Many Colors play into some of the sappiest clich's of country music, with nostalgic details painted on thick. Jeannie's Afraid of the Dark foretells the swamp of cancer ballads that became obligatory among less ambitious acts this decade, and What Will Baby Be is a moralizing sap, one of the few times Parton comes across as a scold.

Perhaps these songs are simply dated the product of bygone musical trends and values but they suffer for their proximity to the tougher-minded material on Dolly. Ironically, Parton sounds most convincing and commanding when she?s writing and singing not about happiness, but about happiness denied. Jolene thrums with romantic distress, and the frailty of her vocals, coupled with the urgent minor key, only underscores the hopelessness of the situation she describes. Likewise, I Will Always Love You is both heartbroken and wistful, her spoken-word delivery on the verses conveying both vulnerability and steadfastness.

Dolly shows Parton to be an expert interpreter, fully inhabiting all of her songs and conveying a range of emotions. Touch Your Woman and The Last One to Touch Me understate an erotic thrill not often associated with country music of the era. And Parton is particularly devastating on Down from Dover, which turns her downhome reveries inside out and allows her girlish voice to sell a southern-gothic story of a deceptive lover and an unwanted pregnancy.

When Parton broke free of Wagoner's influence in the late 1970s and established herself as a truly solo artist, she became much more adventurous both musically and professionally. She made compelling concessions to pop music with You're the Only One (with its lovely George Harrison-style guitars) and the Donna Summer cover Starting Over Again, and appeared in movies like The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, 9 to 5, and Rhinestone, for which she recorded the award-winning soundtracks. Loosening herself from the strictures of the industry, she became a synthesizer of styles and sounds. Islands in the Stream was written by the Bee Gees, but it's the chemistry between Parton and Kenny Rogers that has made it a staple of karaoke nights and wedding receptions. It's a shame that her two Trio albums with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris are only mentioned in the liner notes and not represented on the tracklist, and her 90s and 00s are compressed into just a handful of tracks, despite the fact that albums like The Grass Is Blue and Halos & Horns garnered her a considerable Americana audience.

Despite its shortcomings, Dolly ultimately feels like so much more than the sum of its parts, just as Parton's appeal and popularity transcend any one song, album, or trend. It's much more satisfying than it should be, due not to any curatorial control the producers exerted over the tracklist, sequencing, or packaging, but to Partos sassily endearing and enduring persona, which can redeem even the weakest material. She shines through unmistakably on every note here.

(review from Stephen M. Deusner)

Raredolly rating 9/10

Tracklisting:

Dolly – CD1
01 Puppy Love
02 Girl Left Alone
03 Gonna Hurry (As Slow As I Can) *
04 It’s Sure Gonna Hurt [with Merry Melody Singers]
05 The Love You Gave [with Merry Melody Singers]
06 Nobody But You [with Merry Melody Singers] *
07 Busy Signak
08 Don’t Drop Out
09 I’ve Known You All My Life *
10 Put It Off Until Tomorrow
11 Dumb Blonde
12 Something Fishy
13 I Couldn’t Wait Forever
14 I’m Not Worth The Tears
15 Last Thing On My My Mind [with Porter Wagoner]
16 False Eyelashes
17 The Bridge
18 Just Because I’m A Woman
19 Holdin’ On To Nothin’ [with Porter Wagoner]
20 We’ll Get Ahead Someday [with Porter Wagoner]
21 Jeannie’s Afraid Of The Dark [with Porter Wagoner]
22 In The Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)
23 Daddy
24 Evening Shade
25 Gypsy, Joe & Me
26 My Blue Ridge Mountain Boy

Dolly – CD2
01 Just The Way I Am
02 Down From Dover
03 Everything Is Beautiful (In Its Own Way) *
04 Daddy Come & Get Me
05 Just Someone That I Used To Know [with Porter Wagoner]
06 Tomorrow Is Forever [with Porter Wagoner]
07 Daddy Was An Old Time Preacher Man [with Porter Wagoner]
08 Comin’ For To Carry Me Home ^
09 The Golden Streets Of Glory
10 Mule Skinner Blues
11 Joshua
12 Daddy’s Moonshine Still
13 The Last One To Touch Me
14 Better Move It On Home [with Porter Wagoner] 
15 Coat Of Many Colors
16 Traveling Man
17 My Blue Tears
18 Here I Am
19 God’s Coloring Book *
20 Will He Be Waiting 
21 Touch Your Woman
22 Together Always [with Porter Wagoner]
23 Lost Forever In Your Kiss [with Porter Wagoner]
24 My Tennessee Mountain Home
25 Eugene Oregon *
26 What Will Baby Be * 

Dolly – CD3
01 Jolene
02 Early Morning Breeze – Jolene RCA 12/27/73
03 I Will Always Love You
04 Please Don’t Stop Loving Me [with Porter Wagoner]
05 Love Is Like A Butterfly
06 Sacred Memories
07 The Bargain Store
08 On My Mind Again
09 Kentucky Gambler
10 The Seeker
11 We Used To
12 All I Can Do
13 Light Of A Clear Blue Morning
14 You Are
15 Applejack
16 It’s All Wrong, But It’s All Right
17 Here You Come Again
18 Two Doors Down
19 Me & Little Andy
20 Heartbreaker 
21 I Really Got The Feeling
22 Baby I’m Burnin’
23 You’re The Only One
24 Sweet Summer Lovin’
25 Starting Over Again 

Dolly – CD4
01 Old Flames Can’t Hold A Candle To You
02 9 To 5
03 But You Know I Love You
04 Single Women
05 Heartbreak Express
06 Do I Ever Cross Your Mind
07 Potential New Boyfriend
08 Islands In The Stream [with Kenny Rogers]
09 Save The Last Dance For Me
10 Tennessee Homesick
11 God Won’t Get You
12 What A Heartache
13 Don’t Call It Love
14 Think About Love
15 Why’d You Come In Here Lookin’ Like That
16 Yellow Roses
17 Time For Me To Fly
18 He’s Alive
19 Rockin’ Years [with Ricky Van Shelton]
20 Eagle When She Flies
21 Silver & Gold
22 Romeo

* previously unreleased
^ first time available on an album