Dolly Parton

Although his death made front-page news across several Italian outlets (from Repubblica to Corriere), Dolly Parton is an artist Italy has only ever known superficially, mostly through film, thanks to her roles in hit movies such as “Nine To Five” and “Steel Magnolias.” Her albums never charted over here, and her songs have only really become widely known recently, thanks to the globalizing effect of the internet and social media.
Here we'll suggest a handful of songs that haven't yet reached the same level of fame among Italian audiences as “Jolene” or “I Will Always Love You,” all of them concentrated in the first half of the Seventies, which represented her creative peak, under the banner of so-called progressive country (the singer-songwriter strand of country music, influenced by the counterculture of the Sixties, from Bob Dylan onwards). She would later make some concessions to the divisive urban cowboy trend, heavily skewed towards radio-friendly pop, if not outright disco (it's no coincidence that “Islands In The Stream” was written for her and Kenny Rogers by the Bee Gees).

“Coat Of Many Colors” (1971)
Parton spent her childhood in extreme poverty, in a cabin with no electricity or running water. In this ballad she tells the story of the coat her mother sewed together from scraps of fabric in different colours, and how her schoolmates mocked her for it, without ever managing to dent her pride in that garment. The arrangement is marked by the presence of an electric organ, quite unusual for country music.

“Will He Be Waiting” (1972)
A track with the typical honky tonk gait, though enriched by a bassline considerably more elaborate than the genre's average. The lyrics show the protagonist walking down the street at night to return to the home of the man she left, wondering whether he'll take her back: the contrast between the liveliness of the music and the bleakness of the lyrics is striking, as has often been the case throughout country music history.

“Mission Chapel Memories” (1972)
Co-written with Porter Wagoner, one of the era's country legends and a great champion of Parton, who he helped launch by frequently featuring her on his TV show and recording no fewer than thirteen duet albums with her, mostly in the vein of the Nashville sound. In this song a woman finds herself one evening in the church where she got married, after her marriage has failed, and looks back with regret on her wedding day. The accompaniment here is more subdued, with the moans of a steel guitar and scattered piano touches sketching out its shades.

“When Someone Wants To Leave” (1974)
A melancholy midtempo, driven by the sound of a resonator guitar, that really showcases Parton's voice, at once fragile and piercing. It tells of the end of a relationship in which, by now, only one of the two people still feels anything for the other.

“Highway Headin’ South” (1974)
A wild track that would have been worthy of a Jerry Reed or Waylon Jennings album, with its bursts of soulful group vocals and a rhythmic drive worthy of Creedence Clearwater Revival's swamp rock. The lyrics, a hymn to the sun and mild temperatures of the southern United States, are little more than a pretext.

“Sacred Memories” (1975)
A brisk track that unexpectedly slows down in its middle section, deeply influenced by the spirituals and gospel songs Parton heard in church as a young girl, a theme the lyrics are devoted to as well, openly quoting the standards “Lord I’m Coming Home,” “Amazing Grace” and “If We Never Meet Again.”

“The Bargain Store” (1975)
Along with “Jolene,” this is the song that, more than any other in Parton's career, shows the link between American country music and its Celtic roots. The arrangement is a masterpiece (the muted bass, the percussion, the guitar arpeggios that lead straight back to the British Isles, the piano underpinning the chorus), but the lyrics are just as remarkable: Parton compares the experience she's built up over the course of her life to a second-hand store, and invites the person she loves to buy whatever item they want.

“When I’m Gone” (1975)
One of the most dynamic tracks of her career, propelled by piano and bass grooves, soul backing vocals, and relentless steel guitar flourishes. Parton warns the man who wants to leave her, bored by the routine of their relationship, that once it's over he'll truly realize just how much he needed her.

All the songs recommended above are collected on the excellent anthology “Mission Chapel Memories 1971-1975” (Raven, 2001), embedded below as a Spotify playlist. This is not to suggest that Parton's career can be summed up in that five-year span, spanning as it does 67 years and 69 studio albums, with material of varying quality scattered more or less everywhere. Still, that period remains the one that captured an artist at the cutting edge of her field, able to set the agenda for the most demanding country music alongside a handful of her contemporaries, and for that reason it deserves rediscovery more urgently than the rest of her output.

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