Search - Dolly Parton :: Essential Dolly Parton

This is a good highlight of her RCA years, but....

James Fenos | Columbus, OH United States | 07/27/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Being released on the newly formed Legacy/BMG merged label, one would think Legacy would try to feature more songs from their vaults and tracks recorded from her brief stint with UMG. While the mastering of this cd with her over compiled recordings from RCA sound the best ever, I really feel Legacy missed out on a golden opportunity. While "Shine" closes out this set, the bluegrass album that preceeded it, "The Grass Is Blue," isn't represented at all, as isn't "Halos and Horns." Dolly's one off album with MCA/Decca "Hungry Again" could have be represented by "Paradise Road," and "Treasures" could have been represented by it's huge hit "Peace Train," which was subject to a number of remixes for club consumption. The Sony label could have been better highlighted with hits like "Romeo" and the gospel anthem "He's Alive." I think now we must move past compilations and focus on re-issues. A lot of Dolly's albums, there are a lot of them, have been langushing in the vaults for years; dust 'em off already."

The RCA Shell Game Continues

LD | Somewhere, Out There in this Big Old Crazy World | 08/10/2005

(1 out of 5 stars)

"About ten years ago RCA released, separately, a pair of best of collections by Dolly Parton. Each was called "The Essential Dolly Parton" and had Vol.1 and Vol. 2 to distinguish them.



They appeared to be misnumbered. Vol. 1 was made up exclusively of her undistinguished pop hits like "9 to 5," while Vol 2. was made up mostly of her older country material with some of the pop stuff infiltrating it (which, tellingly, the country stuff was not allowed to do on Vol. 1). Vol. 2 of those collections is now out of print and, it appears, that Volume 1 is in the process of following it to that status.



It would thus appear that this two disc set, which has a very similar set list to those previous collections (even to the point that the pop songs infiltrate the country disc while, by and large, the pop disc is all pop) is designed to fill the void left by the status of those earlier "Essentials." I suppose one could be pleased that the list price of this two disc set is actually lower than the combined list price of the two separate discs but if all you want is the country stuff you're outta luck. You have to plop down about two dozen hard earned dollars to get a second disc you probably don't want and may well never even play.



Three cheers for the previous reviewer who pointed out that an Australian label has released a 24 track collection of Parton's pre-pop country career called "Mission Chapel Memories." Many of the songs on it have never even been released on CD in the United States even though that format is now nearly 25 years old. That collection is an infinitely better value than this redundant one that offers us nothing new other than the song order."

A good retrospective, but the Columbia years are underrepres

Razor X | New Jersey, USA | 07/06/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"In the mid-90s, RCA finally began treating the back catalogs of its legendary artist with respect, with their Essential series, which included two volumes focusing on Dolly Parton's work during her 19-year stint with the label.



This new two-disc Essential collection from Sony BMG replaces the earlier RCA volumes. When RCA's parent company BMG merged with Sony, and the bulk of Dolly's catalog was controlled by one company, many fans, myself included, were excited at the prospect of finally getting an anthology that included hits from her Monument days through her 1987-1995 association with Columbia Records. It was inevitable that the RCA material would dominate, given Parton's long association with that label (1967-1986); however it is disappointing that her Columbia work remains under-anthologized. Only two of her Columbia hits - 1989's "Why'd You Come In Here Looking Like That" and her 1991 duet with Ricky Van Shelton, "Rockin' Years" are represented here. At the very least, "Yellow Roses", "He's Alive", "Eagle When She Flies", and "Silver And Gold", deserved inclusion in this collection. Instead, we get a single track from the Trio albums -- "To Know Him Is To Love Him" with Emmylou Harris on lead vocals, and a duet with Porter Wagoner, "Please Don't Stop Loving Me", which, though excellent, probably should have been excluded in favor of some of Dolly's solo work.



On the bright side, this collection does include a pair of brilliant early tracks that failed to catch on commercially at the time. It's nice to see that "My Blue Ridge Mountain Boy" and "Dumb Blonde", her first (modest) hit for Monument Records, each earned a slot here. I'd have preferred more selections from these early years, instead of some of the later crossover hits which are widely available on other collections, but at least this was a step in the right direction.



The remaining tracks on this collection, are by and large, a rehash of the earlier RCA Essential volumes. It's impossible to do justice to such a long and successful career as Dolly Parton's with a two-disc set. It's also impossible to please everyone - I'd have made some different choices if I were the one compiling this collection - but overall, it is a good introduction to Dolly's work and the best retrospective of her career currently available, despite its shortcomings.



Diehard Parton fans might consider purchasing "The Tour Collection", a 4 CD boxed set recently released by Sony BMG in the UK that contains a handful of Dolly's hits, along with a generous sampling of rare tracks, several of which are making their first appearance on CD. There is some duplication with the Essential discs, but the two collections combined will provide a comprehensive look at this amazing singer-songwriter's entire career.

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