Dolly Parton Album: “Joshua/Coat Of Many Colours”

I just received this album from Amazon and started to listen to it and it brought me back to the olden days of Dolly when she was pure country, no pop music mixed in. The album is wonderful from beginning to end and a must have for any Dolly fan. I already own Coat of Many Colors on CD so I brought this purely for The Joshua side of the CD and I was not disappointed. Joshua was Dolly's first number one song and you can tell why by listening to it. One of my most favorite Dolly songs " The Last One to Touch Me." is the second track. Dolly's beautiful voice sings the song to the highest and as the song plays on, your mind invisions an angel. Actually your mind will invision many things listening to this album for many of the songs on the Joshua side are "story songs." Songs that tell little stories and each one with a twist here and there, something Dolly is very famous for(Me and Little Andy and To Daddy) Dolly lets her voice run free on this album and once again the pure magic that is indeed her shines through. I listened to this album and the recent release album that has Jolene and My Tenn. Mountain Home. Four albums that magically blend together and shows why Dolly is the best singer(and not just country) of all time.

This collection features two Dolly Parton albums combined together on one CD. Both "Joshua" and "Coat of Many Colors" were released in 1971 while she was one of the biggest female country singers of her day and before she became a world-known superstar. Both of these albums show why Dolly would be known as "The Queen of Country Music" or "Nashville's Biggest Female Singer". These records feature a variety of tracks composed by Dolly herself and contains songs that she is most famous for today.

The first record is "Joshua", an album that went only as high as #16 country and #198 pop, but features her first #1 single, also called "Joshua". That song would entice her to write "Applejack" in 1973 which was about an old mountain hermet she befriended in the Smokies. "Joshua" also featues one of the best songs Dolly ever wrote, "The Last One To Touch Me", a song ultimately recorded by George Jones, Porter Wagoner, and Conway Twitty. Other greats here include "Chicken Every Sunday", Daddies Moonshine Still", and the sad "Letter To Heaven". This CD release is also the only known compact disc release of "Joshua".

Lastly, "Coat of Many Colors", an album "Time" magazine ranked as one of the "100 Greatest Albums of All-Time" in any genre. Hitting #7 on the country charts, the title track is Miss Parton's favorite of all the 3000 songs she has ever written and is highly identified as being one of her signature songs. Other gems include "My Blue Tears", "She Never Met A Man She Didn't Like", and "Early Morning Breeze". This record has been released multiple times on CD and in 2007 was rereleased yet again with four bonus tracks.

For an artist of Parton's stature, it's incredible that her towering early achievements are so spottily available on CD. Her brilliant solo albums of the early '70s - the sides waxed shortly after leaving Porter Wagoner and before crossing over to pop stardom - are mostly out of print. This two-fer provides two classic LPs of 1971, "Joshua" and "Coat of Many Colors." The latter has recently been returned to print in the U.S. by Buddha, but the former is only available on this import two-fer.

Throughout both albums, Parton weds gospel power, bluegrass harmonies and x-ray introspection to craft songs about her hard-scrabble Tennessee upbringing. She writes heartbreaking biography ("Coat of Many Colors"), impressionistic memories ("Walls of My Mind") and transforms personal emotions into dramatic fiction ("J.J. Sneed"). Each of these albums stand on their own as perfect examples of Parton's craft, but as a two-fer they provide nearly unimaginable musical riches in a single package.