Coat of Many Colors [Bonus Tracks]

1	Coat of Many Colors 3:06
2	Traveling Man 2:41
3	My Blue Tears 2:18
4	If I Lose My Mind 2:31
5	The Mystery of the Mystery 2:28
6	She Never Met a Man (She Didn't Like) 2:44
7	Early Morning Breeze 2:56
8	The Way I See You 2:48
9	Here I Am 3:20
10	A Better Place to Live 2:45
11	My Heart Started Breaking previously unreleased / Bonus Track 3:04
12	Just as Good as Gone Bonus Track 2:30
13	The Tender Touch of Love previously unreleased / Bonus Track 2:28
14	My Blue Tears previously unreleased / Bonus Track / Acoustic Demo 2:24

Barnes & Noble

When Dolly Parton began sessions for this, her 17th album, she was riding the coattails of Porter Wagoner to small-scale stardom, both on TV and on their wonderful duet recordings. Although her other solo albums had provided ample evidence of Parton's superior songwriting and interpretive singing style, it was Coat of Many Colors that elevated her to a whole other plateau. A No. 4 country hit, the title song offered poignancy and pathos in its story of a poor Tennessee mountain girl whose homemade coat of rags elicits taunts from her better-heeled classmates. Only then does she remembers mother's advice to measure personal worth by standards other than money or material possessions. It was one of several eye-opening Parton originals that leaned on folk wisdom and revealed an unabashed worldliness equal to anything Music City tunesmiths were offering in the spring of 1971. Another was "Traveling Man," a lively, shuffling account of a player who's double-dipping with a mother and her daughter; and a beautiful, southern soul-drenched pledge of devotion, "Here I Am," with Dolly declaiming the triumphant chorus over a bevy of big-voiced soul sisters. Wagoner contributed one of the most startling songs in the Parton canon, "If I Lose My Mind," a mid-tempo, blues-inflected confession in which Parton, newly returned home, admits to enduring "living hell" with the man she loved, who was forcing her into sexually deviant acts. In a chilling climax, the song ends abruptly with Parton deadpanning, "I was afraid of what I'd do if I stayed there." Among four previously unreleased bonus tracks is a telling solo acoustic demo of Parton accompanying herself on briskly fingerpicked guitar, performing a stark, moving rendition of her "My Blue Tears." So begins a great story. David McGee

All Music Guide

At some point, after a successful career and a comeback or two, certain singer/writers like Dolly Parton become artists above and beyond criticism. If her past work in pop and country hadn't accomplished this for her, her recent string of roots albums on Sugar Hill certified her status as a senior statesperson of American music. Interestingly, reaching this exalted position also has a retroactive effect, bestowing the word "classic" on one's earlier work. Coat of Many Colors was first issued in 1971, and the now famous title cut has remained one of Parton's best love songs. The album's arrangements are all over the map, and it sounds, unlike 1973's My Tennessee Mountain Home, as though she had recorded a handful of singles and then added filler. Parton's voice and the subject matter of her mostly self-penned songs defined her as a country singer, in spite of dissimilar arrangements. While none of the material is bad, little holds up to "Coat of Many Colors" and the rocking "Traveling Man," the first and second cuts on the album. The bonus material adds little to the package save the very special last cut, an acoustic demo of "My Blue Tears" (the album cut was a hit -- number 17 -- in 1971). This cut brings to mind the adage about demos sometimes being more interesting than the actual release. With only Parton and her acoustic guitar, the song has an organic, natural feel that roots fans would call authentic. Arguably, the cut has more authenticity than her later recordings on Sugar Hill, and it is frightening to imagine that recordings like this, deemed too basic for public consumption, remain locked in the vault. Not only is the demo of "My Blue Tears" more interesting than the album track, it leads one to believe that the entire album would have been better off without Nashville touches like cheesy background singers. Coat of Many Colors is still a good snapshot of Parton as her career really started to pick up steam. Ronnie D. Lankford Jr.