Robert K. Oermann is a Nashville-based music journalist who is
considered the "unofficial historian of Nashville's musical
heritage." He has written several books on country music, including
Finding Her Voice: The Saga of Women in Country Music, which won
the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for music book excellence. He lives
with his wife in Nashville, Tennessee.
Dolly Parton is the most honored and revered female country
singer-songwriter of all time. Achieving 25 RIAA-certified gold,
platinum, and multi-platinum awards, she has had 26 songs reach #1
on the Billboard country charts, a record for a female artist.
Parton recently became the first country artist honored as Grammy
MusiCares Person of the Year given out by NARAS. She has 41 career
Top 10 country albums, a record for any artist, and 110
career-charted singles over the past 40 years. In 2014, the RIAA
recognized her impact on recorded music with a plaque commemorating
more than 100 million units sold worldwide. Her 2016 #1 album,
“Pure & Simple,” which topped the Billboard Top Country Albums and
Americana/Folk Albums charts and debuted at No. 1 in the U.S.,
Canada, U.K. and Australia, added to that massive tally. She has
garnered ten Grammy Awards and 49 nominations, including the
Lifetime Achievement Award and a 2020 win with for KING & COUNTRY
for their collaboration on "God Only Knows"; 10 Country Music
Association Awards, including Entertainer of the Year; five Academy
of Country Music Awards, also including a nod for Entertainer of
the Year; four People’s Choice Awards; and three American Music
Awards. In 1999, Parton was inducted as a member of the coveted
Country Music Hall of Fame. Parton has donated over 130 million
books to children around the world with her Imagination Library.
Her children's book, Coat of Many Colors, was dedicated to the
Library of Congress to honor the Imagination Library's 100
millionth book donation. From her “Coat of Many Colors” while
working “9-to-5,” no dream is too big and no mountain too high for
the country girl who turned the world into her stage.
Holiday Gift Guide Pick"The coffee table book of the year, this
weighty tome is filled to overflowing with personal anecdotes,
terrific photos and behind-the-music revelations about Dolly's
life, loves, regrets and victories."-- AllMusic
Holiday Gift Pick" A must-have. You'll come away with even more
appreciation for her -- as if that's possible. "--Cool Mom
Picks
" A hefty retrospective on the six-decade career of a country music
superstar who tells stories in song. Parton has been mining her
East Tennessee roots for crowd-pleasing songs ever since she wrote
her first tune, about a corncob doll, at around the age of 6. With
Nashville-based music journalist Oermann, she serves up her
highest-grade ore in a handsomely produced collection of the lyrics
to more than 175 of her songs, some in print for the first time.
All songs have brief introductions on topics such as when and how
Parton wrote them, and longer pieces show her evolution from 'a
hard-core country artist' with a 'girlish soprano tremolo' to a
multifaceted star also at ease with pop, gospel, and bluegrass.
Moving chronologically through the artist's life, the book reveals
her abiding passions with thematic juxtapositions of songs, which
range from '9 to 5' to the elegiac ballads 'Jolene' (her song 'most
performed by others') and 'I Will Always Love You' ('For what she
did with that, I will always love you, Whitney Houston'). Hundreds
of color and black-and-white photos of Parton and others display
her over-the-top tastes in fashion and wigs faithful to her motto:
'Leave no rhinestone unturned.' Parton conceals more than she
reveals about her 50-plus-year marriage to the reclusive Carl Dean
and whether she's had affairs ('Well, I don't admit or deny
anything'). She is frank, however, about professional setbacks. For
example, when she was starting out in the industry, every major
record company on Nashville's Music Row turned her down as a
vocalist. In the final pages, Parton sounds a poignant note in the
lyrics to a song written with Kent Wells and released during the
pandemic. The song, 'When Life Is Good Again, ' is the hymnlike
lament of a repentant sinner who vows to change 'when life is good
again.' A splashy, entertaining guide to the lyrics of one of the
most popular musicians of our time. " --Kirkus Starred Reviews
"...a tome that will keep you entranced for weeks. It is
essentially the story of her life, told through the lyrics of her
songs. The design is wonderful, replete with photographs, ample
white space, descriptive text and song lyrics surrounded by the
ephemera related to them...As I read, I could hear her voice as if
it were reading the book to me. What a treat!"-- Denton
Record-Chronicle (TX)
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