“I’m a rockstar!” bawls Dolly Parton over a squall of guitars. The title track of her 49th album is one of a few original songs on a 30-track behemoth, dominated by leather-clad, steel-studded covers of classic rock hits ranging from The Beatles’ “Let it Be” to Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”. Many songs feature vocal contributions from their starry creators, with golden oldies Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Debbie Harry, Elton John, Sting and Steve Tyler taking turns at the mic with younger stars such as P!nk, Lizzo and Parton’s goddaughter Miley Cyrus.
The Rockstar project has its roots in Parton’s 2022 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was an honour that she initially declined, feeling she didn’t qualify. She’s the Queen of Country, after all. But when she realised that the Hall welcomed artists from all genres, she accepted her place and decided to record some songs to justify it. Her seldom-seen husband of 57 years, Carl Dean, has always been a headbanger (she says he played loud rock’n’roll on his car radio on their first date), so this record is also sweetly dedicated to him. A reworking of Parton’s 1975 song “Magic Man” (later a hit for soft rockers Heart) is even subtitled “Carl’s Version”.
With arrangements seldom straying far from their originals, the vibe is that of a rather raucous, A-list karaoke party. Parton indulges in cheesy banter with Joan Jett and Stevie Nicks, then weaves little snatches of her own song – “I Will Always Love You” (1973) – into Cyrus’s 2013 hit “Wrecking Ball”. Determination to hang on to her own publishing rights meant that she had to refuse permission for Elvis to record the song – a moment she once compared to the heartbreak of walking away from a lover to save your sanity. On Rockstar, she includes the original song “I Dreamed About Elvis”, in which she flirts with a lip-curling Presley impersonator (Ronnie McDowell) – “Can I call you El?” – and finally gets to carol her great love-ballad with him.
Unable to lure Mick Jagger into re-recording “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”, she simply turns the song into an all-girl party with pals P!nk and Brandi Carlisle. Although many of Parton’s duet partners recorded their parts in different studios at different times, the all-embracing warmth of Parton’s tough-but-tremulous vocal makes it sound like she has her arm around everybody’s shoulder.
As P!nk says, Parton sings in a way that can make you feel that “God is listening and help is coming”. She injects a smoky mountain yearning into her take on Prince’s “Purple Rain” and is bound to melt hearts with her rendition of Elton John’s “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me”. Her little sparrow’s quaver gets slightly lost in the disco throb of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass”, and she comes off more strict schoolma’am than stalking lover on The Police’s “Every Breath You Take”. Every warning of “I’ll be watching you” had me picturing Parton pointing a stick of chalk and sliding her glasses down her nose. She takes the same, no-nonsense approach to the sermonising of “Stairway to Heaven”, jazzed up by flute trills from Lizzo.
Parton’s 30-track behemoth is dominated by leather-clad, steel-studded covers of classic rock hits— (Vijat Mohindra/Butterfly Records)
Despite Parton’s wittily self-deprecating “I’m just a Backwoods Barbie” shtick, her attitude has always been rock’n’roll. The country-born daughter of an illiterate man has run her career on her own terms in the face of the industry’s corporate patriarchy for decades, and clearly had a blast along the way. She genre-hopped from country to pop before Taylor Swift was born. Politically, she’s been famously non-partisan – “I don’t condemn or condone,” she likes to say. But new song “World on Fire” sees her losing her rag at the state of the world, calling out greedy selfish politicians to a “We Will Rock You”-esque, stadium-stomping beat. This is echoed in a cover of the Queen hit (mashed up with “We Are the Champions”) later on.
Rockstar is so long that it can feel like a bit of a slog. By the time you reach the penultimate track, “Let It Be” (featuring the first Billboard-charting collaboration between McCartney and Starr since the breakup of The Beatles), many listeners might find themselves in agreement. But then, after all the glittering joy and fluttering hope Parton has given the world, it’s hard to begrudge her a little Dollyoke fun.
