A legend
With many stars – Dolly Parton’s album “Rockstar”
US icon Dolly Parton has recorded a rock album. photo
© Vijat Mohindra/-/dpa
She is the queen of country music and one of the most successful singers of all time. Dolly Parton believed that her induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame required her to produce a rock album – and she delivered.
The line-up is impressive: Paul McCartney (81), Ringo Starr (83), Elton John (76), Sting (72), Sheryl Crow (61) and Peter Frampton (73) are just the icing on the cake. She recorded “Let It Be” with the two ex-Beatles. Elton John persuaded her to sing the legendary duet “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me”. She sang “Every Breath You Take” with Sting.
Mick Jagger deserves a “kick in his skinny ass”
The only reason Mick Jagger didn’t rock out on “Satisfaction” was because time was running out. But the Rolling Stones frontman has now received so much publicity from all the questions that he deserves “a kick in his skinny ass,” Parton joked in an interview with the German Press Agency. In reality, Parton admits, she was very afraid of being rejected by the rock stars.
But how much the country singer and songwriter is valued in the world of rock is perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that she was able to include heavy metal artists like Rob Halford from Judas Priest for her record. But not everything on the album is strictly rock: she recorded a version of her hit “Wrecking Ball” with her goddaughter Miley Cyrus. With Peter Frampton’s song “Baby I Love Your Way”.
Curious best-of-rock album
Parton, who made music history with songs like “Jolene”, “9 to 5” and “I Will Always Love You” and sold more than 100 million records after she entered the rock & Roll Hall of Fame was inducted. She initially rejected her nomination for this. And that on the grounds that she doesn’t deserve to be a country singer. She later changed her mind – but she also wanted to do something about it.
In addition, her husband, Carl Dean, to whom she has been married for almost 60 years, is a “rock’n’roll freak,” she said in an interview with dpa. The fact that her publicity-shy partner praised her for her version of “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin is particularly important to her. “It was really a big, big compliment for me that he liked it because I wanted to make him happy,” said the 77-year-old.
It’s not apolitical: “Liar, liar, the world’s on fire”
The result is a curious “Best of Rock” album that not only Parton fans should enjoy. Her voluminous voice suits the ballads better than the hard rock songs. Nine of the 32 songs are original titles. Including the single “World On Fire” – a catchy rock song that sounds like a political statement. “Liar, liar, the world’s on fire” she sings and it’s hard to avoid associations with major political issues such as Donald Trump’s renewed candidacy for president or climate change.
This is unusual because while Parton is known for investing large sums of money in charitable causes – for example, a million dollars (around 930,000 euros) in medical research that led to the development of Moderna’s corona vaccine – she has actually always been apolitical . Accordingly, she doesn’t want to get involved in an interpretation of her song lyrics. She simply told the homeless magazine “Big Issue”: “I don’t go out on the streets. I don’t carry posters. I’m not an activist. I’m not a feminist – and yet I’m all of that.”