Dolly Parton Goes Pop

...On Music DOLLY PARTON GOES POP BY BRUCE COOK M oma backstage at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D C , to interview Linda Ronstadt one night a few years ago, I ran into Emmylou Harris, who was about a year away from her own national debut Both women sang the praises of someone who was then time virtually unknown to pop audiences—Dolly Parton Hardly a newcomer on the music scene, Dolly had been tucked away in the country music ghetto for nearly a decade, recording for RCA and touring with Porter Wagoner as his leading lady and duet-smger She had her own following, had recorded hit after hit, jnd was then about to cut the cord to Wagoner and venture off on her own Buf even in Nashville, where they respect nothing so much as success, Dolly was looked upon by many as a figure of fun Whenever she walked onstage at the Grand Old Opry, the good ole boys nudged each othei and snickered in recognition of her colossal shape And while the good ole girls may not have known much about New Yoik fashions, they strongly suspected that the spangled, skin-tight |ump-sints and mountainous bouffant blonde wigs (hat she lavoicd weie just a bit declasse In fact, no one knew quite what to make of her—except that she had an abundance of talent The snickers and nudges did not bother Dolly Parton, as I found out when I spoke to her a few weeks after interviewing Linda Ronstadt (She is, by the way, a joy to talk to—one of the freshest, frankest and most ap-pealmgly females figures to be found in show business today) "Well, the way I look is just the way I look," she told me "I can't help that And the way I dress and the wigs I wear—yes, I admit they are wigs—well, I've just always liked dressing up fancy, even as a little girl I please myself, and I guess I please my audience, too, because they keep on coming back for more " Parton's most devoted fans, however, come to listen rather than to look What they hear is a voice that is unmistakably country handled in a wonderfully unique style Born in Sev-lerville, in eastern Tennessee's mountain country, Dolly has captured the high, lonesome sound ot Appalachia It is the kind ot chill, pine vibrato you can hear to this day if \ou go deep enough into the hills and listen to the old v omul in sunbonnets who sit on their porches, twang on dulcimers, and sing the ballads they learned at their grandmothers' knees When Dolly was 10, her uncle, calling himself her manager, got her a job singing for a Knoxville radio station As soon as she graduated from high school, the same uncle persuaded her to move to Nashville There were a few years of struggle there, but m 1967 Wagoner heard her and asked her to join his show It is significant that Parton's big break came when she thought she was merely trying to sell Wagoner a song For she was and is one of the few gifted and successful female songwriters in Nashville Like the best country music, her songs are born of bitter experience Dolly had a hard childhood, growing up in a big family where Daddy could never be sure he would be kept on his job through the winter She declares, though, that she would never have become a singer or a writer if she had not inherited talent and received encouragement from her parents By the time she was five she was making up ditties of her own and begging her mother to write them down for her At seven she had her first guitar and was on her way Dolly's biggest hits have all been of her own compositions The reason may be that she is her own best writer, or that as a performer she brings a special quality of conviction to what she has written herself Whatever the case, on a Parton original like "Coat of Many Colors" Dolly is at her most effective and personal The song tells of a poor little girl's mother sewing together assorted parti-colored rags into a warm, if somewhat gaudy, coat, while recounting for the child the story of Joseph and his envious brothers Wearing the coat to school, the girl, too, encounters jealousy, jeering and resentment trom her classmates Parton has written one bona-tide country and western classic, '\1\ Tennessee Mountain Home " It plays, as so many other country songs do, on a yearning lor the simple lite Net this one is special m naming the details ot a nostalgic \ ision ot lite back home, and in its first-class tune and soaring chorus Dolly's strong suit is her ability as a melodist Even when her lyrics slide into banality and empty piety, as they sometimes do, the music dignifies them considerably Her "I Will Always Love You'"—a big hit for Linda Ronstadt—may be filled with the most commonplace sentiments, but it has a pure, sweet line that is exactly right for the catch-and-sob treatment that puts it over Speaking of Ronstadt, she and Em-mylou Harris persisted in their campaign on Dolly Parton's behalf—promoting her with every journalist they encountered, talking her up from concert stages, singing her songs, and on at least one memorable occasion at Universal City, California, inviting her onstage to smg with them The three are about the same age (although everyone seems to assume that Dolly is older), are good friends, and constitute the most vocal mutual admiration society in music today Consequently, I wasn't too surprised when I heard recently that they are cutting a record together Since leaving Wagoner, Dolly has played a number of places that are well off the beaten track for country performers, including Las Vegas But in general she has made an effort to reach the younger pop audience that Ronstadt and Harris introduced her to A recent Rolling Stone profile, featuring an eye-catching photograph of her alongside bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger, undoubtedly helped P M arton's most serious bid to date for the attention of a larger audience is her new album, Here You Come Again (RCA APL1-2544) Recorded in Los Angeles (the first of her many records to be cut outside Nashville), it was produced by Gary Klein, a young rocker who was obviously trying for a sound more contemporary than country on most of the cuts Despite the presence of violins and backup vocalists and the overproduction of a few of the selections, a rock-solid beat is in evidence throughout The upshot is a rough bargain struck between rock, pop and country Dolly herself sounds different on this one Ordinarily, there is a certain strangeness to her voice that puts off some listeners Her tone can be so high and wispy that it seems rather childlike, at the same time she usually affects a heavy vibrato, almost a tremolo, making her sound something like a sweet-voiced old woman On Here You Come Again, interestingly, she has dropped the vibrato and put a good deal more strength behind her delivery than 1 ever guessed she had It may not sound exactly like the old Jams Joplin, but it's undeniably a new Dolly Parton, and in a way that's just as good The material on the album also appears to have been chosen with an eye toward making the crossover to pop There are just two songs you would have expected to find on a Dolly Par-ton album in the past—the pious "God's Coloring Book" and the bathetic "Me and Little Andy" (both written by her and as heinous as any of her past offenses against good taste) A third, Bobby Goldsboro's "The Cowgirl and the Dandy," is a country song, but the story of a pickup meeting in an airport lounge is a sharp departure from Dolly's usual subject matter The rest of the selections range from the light-rock sound of her own "Two Doors Down" to the nnky-tink rhythm of John Sebastian's "Lovin' You" to a host of ballads The last she renders superlatively, her approach being essentially that of an actress taking on the character in a song and giving it reality You can hear how well this works on the title song, already a hit as a single release It is a modern torch tune with a medium rock beat and a tricky melody that proceeds in minor progressions The line suits Dolly's sob-in-the throat style perfectly, always technically on target, she has no difficulty at all with the harmonic subtleties And she sets the mood beautifully, communicating the tale of the old lover's return with a sincerity that makes it, if only while you're listening, something grander that it is A superior actor invests the most insignificant material with the illusion of significance, and Parton can do that as effectively as any singer around Indeed, her thespian talent leads me to wonder if the ultimate object of this startling image change might not be a desire to do some real acting Dolly is one of the few country performers—and, I think the single woman—who could pull it off She has the Mae West figure and the baby-doll looks that appeal to filmmakers, plus the ability to create some waves on the screen And if the road from Nashville does end up in Hollywood, Dolly Par-ton will at the very least be able to dress up all she wants...