Dolly Parton is arguably best known as a country music singer-songwriter who had a run of successful pop crossovers from the late 1970's to the mid-'80's. But, just as her last album was an exercise in rock, she has also been diverse in her tastes enough to occasionally visit disco and other dance/club music genres. Her first such experience was in 1977, remaking Jackie Wilson's "(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher" (oddly enough, the same year Rita Coolidge made the song into a top ten US pop hit again). Though not issued as a single, Parton's take on the song was noted by the disco columnist for music trade magazine Billboard. Are you at all surprised that Parton recorded disco?

Parton's most successful disco number in so far as pop radio was concerned is 1978's "Baby I'm Burning." I recall hearing it on county radio at the time it was a hit, too, but, in retrospect, I wonder how much of a stretch it was for DJ's and music directors in that format to embrace it, what with its prominent synthesizer pinging sounds accompanying the singer's spirited, libidinous performance. For all the talk in some circles about today's pop country being abominable,. do you think Parton's bold moves into disco deserve some blame/credit for what commercial radio county has become in the 2020's?

Perhaps my favorite foray of Parton into clubby music--and the one I had the toughest time hunting down in its 12" single form--is 1983's "Potential New Boyfriend." Though, if memory serves, it was a bigger club hit, at least among Billboard's discotheque DJ panel, than it was on country radio, it's significant in her discography because it was the single she released before her multi-format, chart-topping, Barry "Bee Gee" Gibb-written "Islands In The Stream." I would rather "Boyfriend" had given her another pop crossover, but which song of Parton's would you have rather heard on pop radio in 1983-84?

By her 1997 release of a remake of a remake of Cat Stevens' "Peace Train," Parton was a non-factor at commercial country radio. bnut she still sounds fine by my ears accompanied by the stomping Euo-house track backing her here (with background vocals by South African vocal ensemble Ladysmith Black Mambazo?). At this point in her career and stage of public perception, this may have been on brand for her as the trilogy of bluegrass albums she began releasing a couple years later. Have you ever heard singers whose voices you enjoy accompanied by music you don't think fits them?

There's at least one other disco'y Parton tune that could be considered here, but instead, I'll pivot into asking another kind of dance music Parton assayed. In 1993, when country line dancing was a hot nightlife and exercise trend, she released "Romeo," with a beat made for that activity. The video features fellow country ladies Tanya Tucker, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Kathy Mattea. They're heard just a bit vocally but more emphatic are the dulcet (?) tones of Billy Ray Cyrus. A year after his silly smash, "Achy Breaky Heart," he assisted Parton in playing a cougar Julet to his role as the titular beau hunk. It may he been Parton's last point of relevancy at country radio, but, to your ears, was it a fitting one?