The best ever Dolly Parton songs (Legends Slot)

For the eleventh legendary artist in The Legend Slot we’re talking all things country with Dolly Parton. It only made sense that the month that Dolly released her ‘Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square’ Netflix film would be the month that I included her in this series! So I listened to all 47 of her studio albums in one month and picked out what I thought were her greatest songs. This is the eleventh post in my ongoing blog series The Legend Slot. To read the other posts in the series, click here.

Dolly Parton: A Brief History

Born in Tennessee, USA in 1946, Dolly Parton is most well known as a singer-songwriter, instrumentalist and actress. With a country music career spanning across seven decades, Dolly is nothing short of an absolute icon. Throughout her career Dolly has been nominated for, and won, an incredible amount of awards and recognition for her music. She’s been awarded ten Grammy’s including the Lifetime Achievement Award (49 nominations), 10 Country Music Awards, 4 People’s Choice Awards and 3 American Music Awards…amongst many others.

‘Hello, I’m Dolly’ (1967) – Dolly Parton.

Not only has she amassed a huge collection of awards but she’s also one of the very few people to have received at least one nomination for an Academy Award, Grammy Award, Tony Award AND Emmy Award. Pretty impressive right? And in 1999, Dolly was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. As well as her incredible music career, she’s also had a thriving career in films as an actress. 9 to 5, Steel Magnolias and Straight Talk to name a few. I could go on and on about all of the incredible things Dolly Parton has achieved in her career so far but I’ll stop here and let you do your own reading. If you want to learn a little bit more about Dolly Parton you can check out her full Wiki page here.

The Legend Slot: Dolly Parton

So I knew going into this that it was going to be bloody difficult listening to all 47 of Dolly’s studio albums. It was definitely going to be the hardest one so far (even more so than Prince). Then when you add in the fact that Kylie Minogue, Ariana Grande AND Miley Cyrus all released absolutely banging albums this month (and all I wanted to do was listen to them on repeat) it was so nearly impossible for me to finish all the listening for this month. But, I did it…somehow. Here’s the full playlist.

A Few Of My Favourites…

Okay so for the favourites…let’s get the big hits out the way first shall we? Of course ‘Jolene’ and ‘I Will Always Love You’ are two of my favourites. The latter is the reason that I put Dolly Parton after Whitney Houston in this series. I love a good artist connection/crossover when it comes to this series and Dolly wrote ‘I Will Always Love You’ after all so it only felt right for her to follow Whitney! A few weeks back I was actually watching her latest interview on The Graham Norton Show and I still can’t believe that she wrote both ‘I Will Always Love You’ and ‘Jolene’ in one night (video below). “I very well may have written those at the same time, if so it was a really good writing night!” YEAH NOT HALF DOLLY!!

One of my other favourite songs has to be ‘Here You Come Again’ from Here You Come Again (1977). There are always a few songs each month that I get really excited to listen to when it comes to his series and ‘Here You Come Again’ was definitely one of them. Then there’s ‘9 to 5’ from 9 to 5 And Odd Jobs (1980) and ‘Coat Of Many Colors’ from Coat Of Many Colors (1971) as well. Two classic Dolly tunes. To finish off the favourites I’ve gone for ‘Why’d You Come in Here Lookin’ Like That’ from White Limozeen (1989). It was a song that I hadn’t heard of before until I watched Dolly’s 2014 Glastonbury set in The Glastonbury Experience this Summer, and I absolutely loved it.

‘Here You Come Again’ (1977) – Dolly Parton.

New Discoveries

When there are 47 albums to listen to there’s definitely going to be more than a few new discoveries. Dolly’s first two albums had so many great tracks on them so I really enjoyed listening and discovering them in particular this month. Some of the stand-out tracks on Hello, I’m Dolly (1967) and Just Because I’m A Woman (1968) for me were ‘Dumb Blonde’, ‘Your Ole Handy Man’, ‘You’re Gonna Be Sorry’ and ‘Just Because I’m A Woman’. ‘The Bargain Store’ from The Bargain Store (1975), ‘Fresh Out of Forgiveness’ from In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad) (1969) and ‘I’m Fed Up with You’ from My Blue Ridge Mountain Boy (1969) were a few other new discoveries (and new favourites) of mine as well.

‘Just Because I’m A Woman’ (1968), Dolly Parton.

And finally…erm, HELLOOOOO to the Led Zeppelin sample on ‘We Used To’ from Dolly (1975). What a nice surprise that was. I did a bit of digging into Dolly after hearing the sample and as it turns out she’s a huge Led Zeppelin fan. As if I needed another reason to absolutely love her! Anyway, give it a listen and let me know in the comments what Led Zep song she sampled.

‘The Bargain Store’ (1975) – Dolly Parton.

What did you think of this months legend? Are you a Dolly Parton fan or not so much? Maybe you’re completely new to her music! Either way, let me know what you thought in the comments! And for more exclusive content make sure to sign up to the F O monthly newsletter below.

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