There is a certain refreshing rightful air to the territory where artists such as Dolly Parton reside. Their legend and fortune long since assured, they are essentially free to follow whatever paths they wish for the rest of their career, both commercially and artistically.
Some, understandably, choose to leave the game altogether; others, regrettably, opt to play it safe. The rarest are those who’ve grown so bold that they’ll try just about anything. Hello, Dolly.
Parton’s secure status is largely what spurred her to revisit the bluegrass music of her mountain roots recently. Both 2000’s The Grass Is Blue and 2001’s Little Sparrow were landmark works for her, impeccably performed and firmly focused collections of songs drawing from a variety of sources, both likely (her own originals, Louvin Brothers, Johnny Cash) and unlikely (Billy Joel, Blackfoot, Collective Soul).
Halos And Horns, her third album for Sugar Hill, is another adventure entirely. While bluegrass plays a part in its fourteen-song overview, just as much involves (as the title suggests) high-strung gospel music. Parton’s own tunes and her choice of covers crawl far out on a limb, while graceful acoustic arrangements often give way to apocalyptic bombast.
Most notably, the picking clearly takes a backseat to the singing this time around. That much is signaled in the second track, “Sugar Hill” — yes, an ode to her record label (sort of) — when Parton’s soaring swoons are percussively counterbalanced by Oak Ridge Boys-style low-register responses from her supporting cast. The full-force gale hits on “Hello God”, which in the course of three minutes builds from a hushed prayer to a choral chant to an over-the-top onslaught that suggests the Mormon Tabernacle on methamphetamines.
The record’s most intriguing vocal turn, however, comes on “These Old Bones”, in which Parton assumes a second voice — that of a cackling, crotchety hillbilly matriarch — to create a conversational tale between a mother and a daughter who share a supernatural bond. It’s as surreal as it is memorable, the kind of moment in which Parton’s fearlessness transforms into bizarre, brilliant beauty.
Such is not the case on her cover of “Stairway To Heaven”, which concludes the album. Unlike the revelation she brought to Collective Soul’s “Shine” last year, Parton manages merely novelty in tackling the Led Zeppelin classic. She fares better with Bread’s “If”, which turns out to be quite well-suited to the bluegrass arrangement it receives here.