She carries her personality in her voice even as it sounds immature, a work in progress. Like the young Michael Jackson she sounds the natural talent in these early songs, singing beyond her years. Dolly starts this early in Parton’s life because it is the music-product equivalent of the bio-pic (or auto-bio-pic, truly), taking us from the humblest of beginnings to the highest of heights. The earliest songs were recorded in 1959, when she was just 13. “Dumb Blonde” is the 11th track in what amounts to a comprehensive musical biography of Parton’s career. The four-CD set Dolly starts even before that beginning. Way beyond, to a career as one of country music’s legendary performers and best songwriters, to the status of larger-than-life pop-culture icon. It and subsequent hits caught Porter Wagoner’s ear, which took her to the Grand Ole Opry, to a successful career as a singer, and beyond. The song was a slight but feisty rejoinder at an ex-lover: “just because I’m blonde / don’t think I’m dumb / ‘cause this ‘dumb blonde’ ain’t nobody’s fool”. That Dolly Parton’s first hit, in 1967, was called “Dumb Blonde” seems appropriate in retrospect, because she spent her career defying that image while visually embodying it.
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