Dolly Parton followed up her Platinum-selling Here You Come Again with 1978’s Heartbreaker, another album aimed at the pop market. This one was even more of a stretch, at times dabbling in the era’s disco sound.
Dolly wrote six of the album’s ten tracks, penning another double single that sent two songs up the charts: ‘Baby I’m Burnin” was a Top 40 crossover success while ‘I Really Got the Feeling’ topped the Country chart.
Three years and five more solo albums separate Jolene from Here You Come Again, the next album I’m covering in this Dolly Parton Shallow Dive.
Those albums included Love is a Butterfly, the title song of which gave her another #1 hit on the Country charts; Dolly, a collection of love songs; and New Harvest…First Gathering, a self-produced album that saw her making a play for a pop audience.
Three years and four solo albums (along with four more recorded with Porter Wagoner) separate my latest Dolly Parton featured record, Jolene, from my last. This woman was frighteningly prolific.
Those solo albums included one called My Favorite Songwriter, Porter Wagoner, on which Dolly performed songs written by her frequent musical partner, and another called My Tennessee Mountain Home, which dived deep into her autobiography (the liner notes included messages from her parents and a photo of the cabin where she grew up).
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.
