The next Dolly Parton album I’m covering is her eighth, and one of her most beloved: 1971’s Coat of Many Colors.
This album was released just four years after her debut, meaning Parton was churning out an average of two solo albums per year. In fact, Coat of Many Colors was her third solo 1971 release. Adding to the insanity of those numbers is the fact that she released six (yes, six!) albums with Porter Wagoner during the same span.
We lost Dolly Parton a month ago, in one of those increasingly rare pop culture moments that transcends divisions and unites us all in gratitude and sorrow.
It’s impossible not to love and admire Dolly Parton, a woman who dedicated her life to making the world a better place.
Just one of the many ways Parton did that was through her music. She released more than 49 solo albums, and dozens of live, collaborative, or soundtrack efforts. It is estimated she wrote more than 3,000 songs in her lifetime.
Huey Lewis and the News held the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100 the week of September 27, 1986, with ‘Stuck with You,’ the first single from the band’s fourth album, Fore!
The band scored their first #1 hit a year earlier with previous single ‘The Power of Love,’ featured on the Back to the Future soundtrack. Their third, and final, chart-topper was ‘Jacob’s Ladder,’ the third single from Fore!
Throwing back to the week of September 26, 1976, we find two splendid only-in-the-70s tracks atop the Billboard Hot 100: Wild Cherry’s ‘Play That Funky Music‘ and England Dan and John Ford Coley’s ‘I’d Really Love to See You Tonight.’
As both have been featured already, that brings us to #3, Walter Murphy’s disco take on one of the world’s best-known classical pieces: ‘A Fifth of Beethoven.’
Last week I marveled that The Rolling Stones not only released an album in 2023, but that the album — Hackney Diamonds — was one of their best.
Well, imagine my shock to discover they did it all over again three years later. This year’s Foreign Tongues isn’t quite the equal of Hackney Diamonds, but it’s pretty close.
And I hate to harp on the age thing, but Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are now closer to 85 than 80. Ronnie Wood, the baby of the group, is a spry 79. How is it possible these guys are still releasing great rock-n-roll albums 62 years into their storied career?
