Unlikely Angel: The Songs Of Dolly Parton
By Lydia R. Hamessley
When Lydia R. Hamessley, a professor of music at Hamilton College in New York, was asked by the University of Illinois Press to write a book about Dolly Parton’s songs, she accepted the challenge. Analyzing a catalog containing over 3,000 songs, including 450 that have been recorded, was no small feat. A decade later, her study of Parton’s music has resulted in Unlikely Angel: The Songs of Dolly Parton. She chose the title, she explains, “to highlight a beautiful and little-known song of Dolly’s, to recognize the way that many of her fans think of her, and to capture the improbability of Dolly’s success given her humble beginnings.”
“This book is not a biography,” Hamessley writes in the introduction. “Information about Dolly’s life is available in numerous biographies, articles, documentaries, interviews, and her autobiography. . .. I incorporate select details of Dolly’s biography and Dolly’s own comments about her life throughout the book in conjunction with my analyses of the songs.” About sending a long list of questions to Parton, Hamessley reports, “She provided a thoughtful and wonderfully detailed account of her family history and earliest musical memories.”
Parton says she has been driven all her life by three passions: “They are God, music, and sex. I would like to say I have listed them in the order of their importance to me, but their pecking order is subject to change without warning.” Hamessley gives us a scholarly and enjoyable study of this complicated songwriter, entertainer, and humanitarian from the perspective of the music of Dolly Parton.
The book is divided into two sections, beginning with chapters that examine foundational perspectives such as Parton’s heritage and her songwriting process. The second section devotes individual chapters to specific song subjects: Love, women’s lives, tragedy, and inspiration. Black-and-white photos appear throughout to illustrate different times in Parton’s life.
Growing up in poverty in the Appalachian Mountains of East Tennessee, Parton began writing songs and entertaining family and friends as a small child. She knew she would be a star someday. Immediately after graduating from high school in 1964, she moved to Nashville to pursue a career in music. Although she quickly became a star, thanks in part to joining Porter Wagoner’s TV show in 1967, it took thirty years for her two goals—stardom and musical autonomy—to come together. She most loved mountain music, which had brought her to Nashville, but it wasn’t commercial. “I had to prostitute myself in certain ways musically in order to make a living,” she explained. “It’s almost like I had to get rich in order to sing like I was poor again.”
Following two decades of hits, her recording career stalled in the early 1990s. “I think of country radio like a great lover,” Parton reflected. “You were great to me, you bought me a lot of nice things and then you dumped my ass for younger women.” Her bluegrass trilogy—The Grass Is Blue (1999), Little Sparrow (2001), and Halos & Horns (2002)—proved she finally had the money to record what she wanted.
One of Parton’s best-known songs, 1971’s “Coat of Many Colors,” anchors the chapter that combines childhood stories with her writing process. In addition to several versions of Parton recalling the original story, Hamessley provides the history of recording the song, what happened to the coat itself, and a summary of the 2015 movie by the same title. She then analyzes the song lyrics, melody and structure, summing up the overall song by saying it meets Parton’s songwriting goal of “enough depth to be appreciated and enough simplicity to be understood.”
Probably the most famous Dolly Parton song is “I Will Always Love You,” in part due to Whitney Houston’s 1992 cover, after it had been a #1 country hit twice for Parton—in 1974 and 1982. Hamessley describes the lyrics as reflecting “a sense of loss or change in a relationship while taking the high road with strength, generosity, and kindness.” The song was not written about romantic love. When Parton was trying to leave The Porter Wagoner Show in 1974 and go out on her own, she could not talk to Wagoner, she recalled: “He was so angry and spiteful and so mean about the whole thing that he wouldn’t allow me a conversation to try to explain why I was doing what I was doing.” She decided the only way she could express herself was to write a song. “Everybody can understand a song,” she said. “There were so many things I wanted to say, there was so much emotion, feeling and heartache on his part and on my part.” After hearing her sing “I Will Always Love You,” Wagoner agreed to let her go if he could produce the recording.
Throughout Unlikely Angel, Hamessley sprinkles Parton’s personality and history while analyzing over 200 songs. Readers not well versed in musical terminology will enjoy learning about Parton and her songs. Those who can understand such phrases as “quickly descending chromatic line in parallel 3rds” will gain a deeper understanding of Parton’s music. For example, the author describes the melody of “The Seeker” as having “a major 3rd, but it also contains the flatted 7th scale degree, and the harmony further includes a flatted 6th scale degree.”
Hamessley writes, “The image she created for herself has overshadowed her songwriting talent for many people. But through my immersion in Dolly’s music, I have come to know and admire a gifted composer.” Readers will more than likely agree.