Released: October 27, 2009 by RCA Nashville/Legacy Recordings
If the image of Dolly Parton was to be carved in stone atop a great mountain in her native East Tennessee hills, it would be a worthy honor among the hundreds of honors and awards she has already received. Her numerous accomplishments over the past 50 years have reflected her roles as a singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, worldwide touring artist, Hollywood actor and tv personality, Broadway entrepreneur, author, amusement theme park owner, celebrated philanthropist, and more.
Not the least of those accomplishments is her litany of hit songs and signature compositions. Dolly Parton is distinguished for having charted at least one Top 5 country hit in each decade since the '60s. She has also charted at least one #1 country hit (if not a dozen) in each decade from the '70s to the '00s: "Joshua," "Jolene," "I Will Always Love You," "Love Is Like A Butterfly," "Here You Come Again," and many more in the '70s; "Starting Over Again," the Grammy Award-winning "9 To 5," "Islands In The Stream" (with Kenny Rogers), "Tennessee Homesick Blues," "Why'd You Come In Here Lookin' Like That," and many more in the '80s; "Rockin' Years" (with Ricky Van Shelton) in 1991; and "When I Get Where I'm Going" (with Brad Paisley) in 2005.
Now a unique new honor comes her way with the simply-titled "Dolly," the first multi-CD, multi-label deluxe box set compilation ever to represent her life's work, comprising 99 songs over four CDs. "Dolly" will be available at all physical and digital retail outlets starting October 27th through RCA Nashville/Legacy, a division of SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT.
The elegant package designed for "Dolly" houses a full-color 60-page booklet with never-before-seen photographs and rare memorabilia. A brief and loving introduction has been written by Nashville-bred singer-songwriter Laura Cantrell. An extensive 5,000-word biographical essay follows, by ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award-winning writer-editor-producer-lecturer Holly George-Warren. Her recent books include Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry; The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: The First 25 Years; and The Road to Woodstock (with Michael Lang). She has written liner notes for dozens of rock and country anthologies and box sets, many of them on Legacy, including June Carter Cash's Keep On The Sunny Side: Her Life in Music (2005), Johnny Cash at Madison Square Garden (2002) and the reissue of Uncle Tupelo's Still Feel Gone (2003).
Earlier this year, in March 2009, one week prior to the eagerly-anticipated Broadway opening of 9 To 5: The Musical at the Marriott Marquis Theatre, RCA Nashville/Legacy released a new expanded edition of 1980's 9 To 5 And Odd Jobs - with three bonus tracks, two of them previously unreleased.
"Dolly" continues to explore the broad range and depth of her recording career - from the rarely-heard sides cut at age 11 for the Louisiana-based Goldband indie label, and at age 16 for Mercury in Nashville, through her whirlwind two years (and first chart records) with Monument (1965-67), her record-setting near two-decade stay with RCA Records (1967-85, underpinning her long hitmaking association with Porter Wagoner), and another near-decade at Columbia into the '90s.
In addition, seven previously unreleased tracks make their historic debuts on this box set:
"Gonna Hurry (As Slow As I Can)" - demo circa 1957-62, co-written with her uncle Bill Owens, a formative figure in Dolly's early musical evolution;
"Nobody But You" (with the Merry Melody Singers) - from the same 1962 Nashville sessions that produced Dolly's Mercury single "It's Sure Gonna Hurt" b/w "The Love You Gave," both songs also included on this box set;
"I've Known You All My Life" - a virtually unknown Goffin-King song (cut by the Four Preps) from the same November 1965 sessions at Monument as "Don't Drop Out," produced and arranged by Ray Stevens;
"Everything Is Beautiful (In Its Own Way)" - an original composition, from the fall 1969 sessions at RCA Studios Nashville for The Fairest Of Them All;
"God's Coloring Book" - an original, thematically related to "Coat Of Many Colors," from the same April 1971 sessions which produced that LP;
"Eugene Oregon" and "What Will Baby Be" - both original compositions, from the RCA Studios Nashville sessions of December 1972, for My Tennessee Mountain Home.
![Dolly [4 CD Box Set]](cover.jpg)
