Those Were the Days

1	Those Were the Days / Porter Wagoner 5:00
2	Blowin' in the Wind / Sean Watkins 3:22
3	Where Have All the Flowers Gone / Norah Jones 4:05
4	Twelfth of Never / Keith Urban 3:17
5	Where Do the Children Play / Yusuf 3:25
6	Me and Bobby McGee 3:51
7	Crimson and Clover / Tommy James 3:40
8	The Cruel War 3:43
9	Turn, Turn, Turn / Roger McGuinn 3:18
10	If I Were a Carpenter / Joe Nichols 2:56
11	Both Sides Now / Judy Collins 3:34
12	Imagine / David Foster 3:52

Barnes & Noble

Dolly Parton's artistic rejuvenation continues unabated on Those Were the Days, a mostly acoustic collection of cover songs from the '60s and '70s, including some that became familiar anthems during the civil rights and antiwar movements. Not that this is any kind of protest album, but the infusion of social consciousness is an interesting new wrinkle in Parton's repertoire. Also, this is a duets-and-more album, as Parton is accompanied on each song by guest artists. Some of the inspired pairings include none other than Tommy James on harmony vocal (and tremolo guitar) in a shimmering rendition of "Crimson and Clover" and Roger McGuinn adding urgent harmonies to a bluegrass-ified "Turn, Turn, Turn," in which David Talbot's cascading banjo lines evoke the feel of Pete Seeger's original version. Nickel Creek add silky folk textures and ethereal harmonies to Parton's crying interpretation of "Blowin' in the Wind," while a string section underpins a mournful reading of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," with evocative harmony support from Norah Jones and Lee Ann Womack. With David Foster on piano and a lush string section behind her, Parton digs into John Lennon's "Imagine" with a deliberate, impressively modulated reading that is captivating in its whispered verses and soaring choruses. Johnny Mathis's beautiful love ballad "Twelfth of Never" is retooled as a brisk bluegrass shuffle, with Keith Urban adding a dreamy tenor vocal part. Judy Collins revisits a keening "Both Sides Now," with Rhonda Vincent pitching in on harmonies as well. Kris Kristofferson (on "Me and Bobby McGee"), Alison Krauss, and Joe Nichols are present and accounted for, too, their solid presence adding ballast to an album that is charming in its execution and compelling in its subtle but pointed messages. David McGee

All Music Guide

Ever since signing with Sugar Hill in 1999, Dolly Parton has been on a hot streak, putting out a steady stream of rootsy albums that found her creatively re-energized. It all started with the all-bluegrass Grass Is Blue, which won a Grammy in 2000, and she worked a similar territory on the subsequent Little Sparrow (2001) and started to branch out a bit with Halos & Horns (2002), which remained in the acoustic realm but wasn't as strictly bluegrass. Now, with Those Were the Days, she breaks free of bluegrass in the strictest sense by recording an album of her favorite songs from the '60s and '70s. While this isn't traditional bluegrass by any means, it's still rootsy acoustic music, due to both the instrumentation and choice of songs, which are, with the exceptions of Tommy James' "Crimson and Clover" and John Lennon's "Imagine," firmly within the folk and folk-rock tradition of the '60s. Parton has also styled Those Were the Days as a duet album, inviting the original singers or songwriters when they were available, and bringing in newer singers when they were not (like Nickel Creek providing harmonies on Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind," Norah Jones and Lee Ann Womack for "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," and Keith Urban for "Twelfth of Never"). The arrangements are at once tasteful, imaginative, and relatively unsurprising -- there are no left hooks, no electric sitars, or wah-wah guitars (although there is the trademark electric guitar tremolo on "Crimson and Clover"), just vivid, successful, slight reworkings of familiar songs that make them sound fresh again. Since Parton has been making strong acoustic records for six years now, this doesn't have the same impact as Grass Is Blue, but that doesn't mean that Those Were the Days is a bad record. Far from it, actually -- it's yet another very good album, one with no weak spots, from a revitalized Dolly Parton, who has turned into one of the more reliable country music veterans of the 2000s. Stephen Thomas Erlewine

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

[Grade: B+] Parton imbues these tunes...with emotional, convincing vocals.... Parton could sing the phone book and make it sound great. Barry Gilbert