Dolly Parton will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on November 5th alongside Pat Benatar, Duran Duran, Eminem, Eurythmics, Lionel Richie, and Carly Simon. And although I understand Parton's initial reluctance to accept her nomination, I'm glad she got in and decided to change her position. Johnny Cash is in the Rock Hall, so are lost of country-influenced rockers, I'd love to see Willie Nelson and Loretta Lynn inducted to. And I hope this does inspire Dolly Parton to make a rock'n'roll album, as she's said it might. 

1. Your Ole Handy Man

2. The Bridge

3. He's A Go Getter

4. Evening Shade

5. Down From Dover

6. The Master's Hand

7. J.J. Sneed

8. Here I Am

9. Will He Be Waiting

10. Lonely Comin' Down

11. The Wrong Direction Home

12. Love With Me

13. When Someone Wants To Leave

14. River of Happiness

15. You're The One That Taught Me How To Swing

16. On My Mind Again

17. Hold Me

18. Boulder To Birmingham

19. How Does It Feel

20. Lovin' You

21. As Soon As I Touched Him

22. With You Gone

23. It's Not My Affair Anymore

24. Same Old Fool

25. Hush-A-Bye Hard Times

26. As Much As Always

27. Ooo-eee

Track 1 from Hello, I'm Dolly (1967)

Track 2 from Just Because I'm A Woman (1968)

Track 3 from In The Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad) (1969)

Track 4 from My Blue Ridge Mountain Boy (1969)

Track 5 from The Fairest Of Them All (1970)

Track 6 from The Golden Streets Of Glory (1971)

Track 7 from Joshua (1971)

Track 8 from Coat Of Many Colors (1971)

Track 9 from Touch Your Woman (1972)

Track 10 from My Favorite Songwriter, Porter Wagoner (1972)

Track 11 from My Tennessee Mountain Home (1973)

Track 12 from Bubbling Over (1973)

Tracks 13 and 14 from Jolene (1974)

Track 15 from Love Is Like A Butterfly (1974)

Track 16 from The Bargain Store (1975)

Track 17 from Dolly (1975)

Track 18 from All I Can Do (1976)

Track 19 from New Harvest...First Gathering (1977)

Tracks 20 and 21 from Here You Come Again (1977)

Track 22 from Heartbreaker (1978)

Track 23 from Great Balls Of Fire (1979)

Track 24 from Dolly, Dolly, Dolly (1980)

Track 25 from 9 to 5 and Odd Jobs (1980)

Track 26 from Heartbreak Express (1982)

Track 27 from Burlap & Satin (1983)

It's funny to think that someone seemingly born to be a star like Dolly Parton kicked around the music industry for a decade before she really got a chance to prove her talent. She released her first single in 1959, but didn't get to release her first album, Hello, I'm Dolly until 8 years later, after three songs she wrote were hits for other artists, all of which she included her own recordings of on her debut: "Put It Off Until Tomorrow" by Bill Phillips, "Fuel To The Flame" by Skeeter Davis, and "I'm In No Condition" by Hank Williams Jr. That album also featured one of Parton's signature songs, "Dumb Blonde," which wasn't a huge chart hit at the time. She didn't really get going as a hitmaker until "Joshua," the title track from her 7th solo album, her first country #1. I let the playlist cover her career up through 1983, the year of "Islands in the Stream," to really capture her whole commercial and creative ascent. 

I stuck to Dolly's solo albums, so there's nothing here from her hugely successful collaborative albums with Kenny Rogers and as a trio with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, or the 13 albums Parton made as a duo with her mentor, Porter Wagoner. But Dolly made a solo album of his songs called My Favorite Songwriter, Porter Wagoner, and the opening track "Lonely Comin' Down" is one of her most streamed deep cuts. When she split from Wagoner two years later and said goodbye to him with the song "I Will Always Love You," the b-side of its single was "Lonely Comin' Down," which also made an appearance on the Jolene album. 

Parton wrote most of these songs besides "Lonely Comin' Down," another Wagoner composition "On My Mind Again," covers of Emmylou Harris's "Boulder To Birmingham" and Nicolette Larson's "Ooo-eee," and some of the later songs from when she began to branch out into the pop world ("Lovin' You," "As Soon As I Touched Him," "It's Not My Affair Anymore," "Same Old Fool"). And she's really just a songwriting titan, I particularly love "The Bridge," great ending.  

"Down From Dover" is probably the most important album track from Dolly Parton's early albums, a story song about a pregnant teenager. Porter Wagoner disapproved of Parton writing about controversial subject matter and it was never released as a single, but it's been covered by Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra and Marianne Faithfull, and Parton has revisited it several times, on her 2001 album Little Sparrow and her Netflix series "Heartstrings." Parton also revisited "Here I Am" with a new version with Sia in 2018 for the movie Dumplin'. 

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