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Dolly Parton

DOLLY PARTON
 
 
Dolly Parton  (born January 19, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, actress, author, businesswoman, and humanitarian, known primarily for her work in country music.  She rose to prominence in 1967 as a featured performer on singer Porter Wagoner’s weekly syndicated TV program.  Moving towards mainstream pop music, a string of pop-country hits followed into the mid-1980s, the most successful being her 1980 hit “9 to 5” (from the film of the same name) and her 1983 duet with Kenny Rogers “Islands in the Stream”, both of which topped the U.S. pop and country singles charts.  A pair of albums recorded with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris were among her later successes.  Parton is the most honored female country performer of all time.  She has had 25 songs reach No. 1 on the Billboard Country charts, a record for a female artist.  She has 41 career top 10 country albums, a record for any artist, and she has 110 career charted singles over the past 40 years.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 

The name of the Greg Shaw magazine called Who Put the Bomp is taken from “Who Put the Bomp (in the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp)”, a Top-40 hit by Barry Mann.  This was basically a one-hit wonder, but Mann always concentrated mostly on his songwriting, and he is well known for numerous songs that were co-written with his wife Cynthia Weil – “Blame it on the Bossa Nova” by Eydie Gorme, “Hungry” and “Kicks” by Paul Revere and the Raiders, “Here You Come Again” by Dolly Parton, “Looking through the Eyes of Love” by Gene Pitney originally, etc.  

 

(May 2013)

 

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Likewise,  the few women who reached the top of their field are among the biggest stars in country and western music history:  Kitty Wells, Tammy Wynette, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, and Reba McEntyre, among many others.  In hip hop, Salt-N-Pepa burst onto the scene in 1985 and probably helped establish the musical genre altogether, back when rap was being dismissed as a fad. 

 

(October 2013)

 

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“Spirit in the Sky” by Jewish-American singer-songwriter Norman Greenbaum is one of the biggest Christian-themed songs in music.  Norman Greenbaum remains a practicing Jew and was inspired to write and record the song while watching Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner sing a religious song on television.  

 

(July 2014)

 

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“Mule Skinner Blues” has been recorded by many others over the years, notably by Dolly Parton; when she states flatly mid-song “I want to be a mule skinner”, you can almost believe her. 

 

(December 2014)