Dolly Parton's equal parts Vaudeville, Vegas and vocals

MUSIC REVIEW | Crowd-pleasin' Dolly delivers cornball comedy, country classics

May 9, 2008

BY DAVE HOEKSTRA Staff Reporter dhoekstra@suntimes.com

The vaudeville ghosts of the Chicago Theater were smiling on Thursday night.

Dolly Parton hit the stage in a two-hour revue that was part Mae West, Dottie West and Key West, if you catch my flamboyant drift. The Country Music Hall of Famer won over the audience with her honeysoaked vocals, Vegas-like stage show and lots of cornball humor. Here's one punch line: "That's like making molehills out of mountains." I won't spoil the rest for tonight's show. Tickets still remain.

Parton and Loretta Lynn are the last two female country stars of the 1960s. But where Lynn has stayed grounded in a coal miner's ambiance, Parton has become an entertainment empire that encompasses Hollywood, an amusement park that draws 3 million people a year (as she pointed out on Thursday) and friends like Oprah Winfrey. Parton said that someone suggested she and Oprah run for president. Then she quipped, "But there's enough boobs in the White House."

There I go again.

In fact, Parton sang a chipper pop version of her 1977 smash "Here You Come Again," toward the end of the second set.

Parton was backed by an 11-piece band that was subservient to the star.

They didn't show much character and they played loud on cheesey "gospel." It was country on steroids. The group was right on top of the show opener "Two Doors Down" and if you're going tonight get there on time. Parton started promptly at 8 p.m. Her Appalachian phrasing was immaculate on her classic "Jolene" and early on she affectionately covered "Backwoods Barbie," the autobiographical title track from her current album.

Parton launched into a high energy cover of John Denver's "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" on harmonica and when she switched to vocals I swear she had pulled a Pavarotti and was lip-syncing to the fast lyrics. But then Parton wouldn't do that, would she? She told the crowd, "Nothing is real about me but my heart."

At age 62, Parton is in the right place at the right time. Her accessibility and good nature fits right in an estrogen pop culture sizzling with Oprah, Ellen DeGeneres and "The View." Parton even employed a talk-show format in the second set, answering fan questions from file cards while also plugging her Aunt Dolly role on the hit "Hannah Montana" television show.

She got sophisticated for a moment, taking her place behind a white piano and framing her new composition "The Lonesomes" in a country blues setting that would have fit right in a vintage Buddy Charles set at Acorn on Oak.

On the new ballad "Shattered Image" she played a rhinestone dulcimer that matched her outfit. Parton later turned back to the late 1950s for "Puppy Love," a rockabilly workout she wrote with her Uncle Bill. That was Parton's first composition. She's traveled a long way from the hardscrabble edge of the Smoky Mountains. The fact that Parton wears a coat of many colors explains her mass appeal.