Those Were the Days

by

Dolly Parton

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"Those Were The Days" marks Dolly's third full album of cover songs, although she has included cover material on albums thruout her career. The first full cover album was 1984's "The Great Pretender" in which Dolly covered songs from the late 50's and early 60's. Although "Pretender" is a good album, it suffers from the typical 80's production, heavy on the synthesizers. The next like album was 1996's "Treasures" which was kind of a mixed bag of genre's and era's. With "Days" Dolly sticks pretty much to the late 60's and early 70's. The songs are all done in bluegrass-y style of her most recent work. For the most part the results are fantastic. A few of the songs take a few spins to grow on you, "Where Have All The Flowers Gone" and "Both Sides Now" have been sped up a bit but work once you become accustomed to the faster style. For me the stand out tracks are the title track, which has always been a favorite of mine, "Me & Bobby McGee", "Where Do The Children Play" and "Imagine".

After 40 years of making music, Dolly is making some of the best albums of her career. That's very rare for any artist. Although she didn't pen any of the songs on this album, that in no way detracts from it. This is a great album and a fun listen. Essential to any Dolly collection.

Parton's rendition of "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" exemplifies what she does to most of the songs on this recording--ruins them. This particular song is a sad war song about loss and grief but Parton apparently doesn't understand this and turns it into a country hoedown. The other songs fare almost as badly, though I found myself liking Those Were The Days. The other factor that brings this CD down is the way that big-name guest artists are used merely as window dressing. Except for the songs with Keith urban and Joe Nichols, her distinguished guests are relegated to the role of backup singers. Except for the liner notes, you'd never know who they were. This could have been a good recording, maybe even a great one, but Parton doesn't share the spotlight with her guests and doesn't understand the musical nature of the songs.