A coal miner’s daughter near the end, Dolly at the peak of her powers
Loretta Lynn – Still Woman Enough (Sony)
At the age of 88, and most of her peers having already kicked the bucket, she took a look around and decided it was time to make a proper death album. 2016’s Full Circle dealt with the same grim topic but was counteracted by her signature coal-country spunk — “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.” Here, we get the requisite hymns necessary to appease her God. I count four hosannas, all of which are standards. “Keep on the Sunny Side,” “I Don’t Feel at Home Anymore,” “Where No One Stands Alone,” and “I Saw the Light.” Her looming date with the grave has also softened her to the point of gross sentimentality. A pastoral rendition of “My Old Kentucky Home” precedes a spoken-word recitation of “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” because she loves her earthly father, too. She largely sounds peaceful, well-rested and content with the life she’s got left to live. Such a softhearted disposition makes the songs that reassert her rowdy and tough femininity seem forced and disingenuous — an icon painting by numbers before she rejoins her friends in eternity. But then I remembered staring death in the face with charisma, charm and humor is its own kind of toughness. Then the songs don’t sound forced at all. They sound quite natural, actually. GRADE: A-
Dolly Parton – Best of Dolly Parton (RCA Nashville, 1975)
When I was a child, I knew her simply as the woman with big hair and enormous hooters. As an adult and learned Dolly fan, I know she’d laugh at the previous sentence and brush aside these ensuing sentences with the aw-shucks demeanor and self-deprecating charm that makes her so lovable. No joke: she’s the greatest country songwriter of her generation. It isn’t just her storytelling, always sharp and economical, nor it is just her ability to express the gamut of human emotions so convincingly. The topper is her command for the English language and all its malleable wonder — I giggle every time her rocky-top drawl bends the words “courting” and “oughtn’t” into an impossible rhyme. She’s always playful, unpretentious and unbeatably sincere. Although she’s always played up her public image as a walking cartoon, she’s neither a persona nor a shtick. She’s completely human and smarter than history gives her credit for. If she were truly a punchline, “Jolene” wouldn’t be nearly as devastating and “Coat of Many Colors” would lose much of its rag-tag potency. This is a hall-of-fame compilation, no doubt, the sound of an icon at the peak of her powers. And for the magnitude of the music, I keep coming back to “I Will Always Love You,” a plaintive ballad wherein the crushing weight of a broken heart sounds as fragile as a chickadee. Whitney Houston missed the point. GRADE: A+
Sound 'Round 