What I’ve Learned From Listening to Every Dolly Parton Album

I started my project to listen to all of Dolly’s albums in 2018 and I admit it took me much longer to finish this than I had anticipated (see the full list of reviews here). When you grow up with an artist and listen along to them, it’s much easier to connect and put their work in context than trying to listen to everything all at once. Many of Dolly’s albums are tied to particular eras in time and music history, which were pretty alien and musically discombobulating to return to.

What I did learn about her music and her life might already be obvious to others, but I thought I would share some of my conclusions here about what Dolly’s music can teach us about how to live a good life.

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Every Dolly Parton Solo Album Ranked & Reviewed!

Listening to every Dolly solo album in order was a mammoth task and one which offers me some insight into the quality of her work over the last few decades.

Ranking albums is a fun task for music nerds like myself, and I began by splitting the albums into four categories: excellent, good, average, terrible. After that I went back to read my reviews (linked below) and listen again to determine which order I think best reflects the quality of Dolly’s work and my own personal favourites.

The top five albums or even ten albums are all quality and the order reflects the amount of times I’ve listened to that particular record. Why I chose the number one album is because I think it best encapsulates everything Dolly has to offer: country, pop, bluegrass, classic songwriting, and above all else personality.

Read on and click the titles to read my reviews. Please let me know your favourite Dolly album in the comments! I have excluded soundtrack albums, her Christmas albums, the Dollywood only album and her children’s album, making a total of 45 albums to rank.

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Dolly’s Discography – Pure & Simple (2016)

‘Pure & Simple’ is an album dedicated to Dolly’s mysterious husband Carl Dean, a man who has kept himself out of the spotlight for her entire career. The songs Dolly has written about him in the past include ‘Jolene’ and ‘Just Because I’m A Woman’, neither of which paint him in an entirely flattering light. To do an album of love songs in the year they renewed their vows is a tribute to the longevity of their marriage, while also offering Dolly something different in terms of theme at this point in her career.

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Dolly Parton’s Discography: Blue Smoke (2014)

A couple of years back I made a running playlist of Dolly Parton songs, my favourite of which is the title track from this album ‘Blue Smoke’. My running route included quite a large hill and so this song would usually come on just at the point I was ‘climbin’ up the mountain’ and I found it always gave me the motivation I needed to keep going. The tune is one of Dolly’s most underrated songs, about leaving behind your old life and never looking back. A simple bluegrass arrangement that suits Dolly so well and one of her catchiest melodies – so catchy that the Glastonbury crowd picked it up almost instantly despite it being unfamiliar to most of them when she played it there.

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Songs of the Year 2022

Yes it’s that time of year again when we all look back across a year in music to think about what songs we played to death, what songs stood out from the many heard and what songs really defined the moments of your life.

Find mine below. I have not had as much time to write this year so I have included some tracks which come from albums I have not had the chance to review. Let me know your favourites!

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Celtic Connections 2023 Preview

If you’re looking for some Christmas gifts this year then one glance through the Celtic Connections schedule will leave you overwhelmed by choice. Last year Omicron decimated the usually strong Americana programme, leaving only a few overseas artists playing the funded Transatlantic Sessions. Thankfully this year they have been able to return to a more normal looking schedule, with the festival celebrating its 30th year and offering a diverse array of artists across genres for every kind of roots music fan.

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Album Review: Norah Jones – I Dream of Christmas

Original Christmas songs and albums are becoming harder to find, with so many artists finding the opportunity to sing classics too hard to resist. Who can blame them, after all, since these holiday songs are etched on our collective memories. Last year Pistol Annies released an album of mainly originals but that is rare.

Norah Jones’s ‘I Dream of Christmas’ was actually released last year, although I didn’t have a chance to listen to it then, so I was glad to see this deluxe re-release came just in time when I was looking for a new Christmas album to review. The edition includes six original songs written by Norah, alongside seasonal favourites sung in her classic jazz inspired sound.

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