"I think this is some of my best work," Parton tells Newsweek, in an exclusive interview ahead of the album's release later this month. "I just wanted to be true to the songs and true to the art form." The album is certainly a departure from Parton's usual country fare, but departures from the norm are actually nothing new for the singer-songwriter.
Parton has made a career of crossing genres, breaking barriers and disrupting traditional ideas about what a country artist, particularly a female one, can be. She pioneered the country-pop crossover with hits like "9 to 5" and "Here You Come Again," and has also ventured into bluegrass, Christian music, disco and now, rock, with musical storytelling often focused on women and female empowerment.
In addition to her musical career, she is an actor, a business mogul and a philanthropist. And she's done it all while insisting, despite industry pressure to change, on staying true to who she is and her personal vision of her career, executed with steely determination encased in rhinestones, big hair, heels, humor and plenty of country charm.
In the process, Parton has paved the way for other country singers, especially women, from Reba McEntire and Carrie Underwood to Taylor Swift and her goddaughter Miley Cyrus (who joins "Aunt Dolly" for a moving performance of her signature hit "Wrecking Ball" on the new album), to also venture into other musical genres, to try their hand at acting, to build their business brands and to generally take charge of their own career destinies.
"We're all just trying to be Dolly," Underwood said in a Country Music Television tribute to Parton in 2020. "She is somebody who has set an incredible example for us and paved such a path for us. If there was no Dolly, there would be no us."
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