Backwoods Barbie

1	Better Get to Livin' 3:35
2	Made of Stone 4:12
3	Drives Me Crazy 4:12
4	Backwoods Barbie 3:19
5	Jesus & Gravity 4:40
6	Only Dreamin' 5:35
7	The Tracks of My Tears 3:33
8	The Lonesomes 3:17
9	Cologne 3:41
10	Shinola 4:11
11	I Will Forever Hate Roses 3:26
12	Somebody's Everything 4:16

Barnes & Noble

Following an incredibly fruitful three-album tenure with Sugar Hill, Dolly Parton makes a much-ballyhooed, and ultimately successful, return to the country mainstream with Backwoods Barbie. But make no mistake -- it's a return on her own terms, as she wrote and largely produced the album for her own newly formed label. Typical of her best work, Parton delivers meaningful songs with panache, conviction, and commanding style, in both songs and arrangements. A strong streak of vulnerability surfaces via lush production touches and Dolly's soaring, aching vocals -- landing a visceral punch with her accounts of a heart bruised, battered, betrayed, and broken. These range from the torch-style, bluesy wailing of "Made of Stone" to the woozy, late-night country blues of "The Lonesomes" to the bitter reflections articulated in the honky tonk-flavored, pedal steel-rich screed "I Will Forever Hate Roses." The Fine Young Cannibals' hit "Drive Me Crazy" is a techno-country fusion that's likely a showstopper in concert, but it's one of Dolly's lesser cover choices, lacking the lyrical and musical depth of her re-imagining of "Stairway to Heaven" on 2002's Halos & Horns or, going back to 1977, New Harvest...First Gathering's country-disco arrangement of Jackie Wilson's "Higher and Higher" (better than mere words can suggest). On the other hand, Dolly returns, gloriously, to the Smokey Robinson songbook (see the aforementioned 1977 release for her version of "My Girl") for a delicious southern country-soul treatment of "Tracks of My Tears," a beautifully realized production that blends the best elements of Smokey's and Johnny Rivers's hit versions with Dolly's impeccable sense of the lyrics' emotional shadings. The title track is a winning, stone-country, personal ballad in the "Coat of Many Colors" mold in which Dolly asserts, "I might look artificial but where it counts I'm real." Never doubted, not for a second. David McGee

All Music Guide

It's been three years since Dolly Parton released a new album, and nearly two decades since she put out anything close to a mainstream country offering, so Backwoods Barbie ought to get some serious media attention, although it remains to be seen whether the now 62-year-old Parton will get much play on the new country stations. The first single from the album, the cloyingly wise "Better Get to Livin'," is certainly catchy enough, but the fact remains that Parton's voice isn't quite what it used to be and she wasn't exactly Patsy Cline in the first place. What she is, and has been all these years, is a true iconic presence in country music, a shrewd marketer, an astute businesswoman (Backwoods Barbie appears from her own Dolly Records), and a frequently brilliant if understated songwriter (nine of the 12 tracks here are Parton originals). Unlike her last couple of albums, which were bluegrass-based, she isn't trying to reinvent herself here, but works in her usual pop and country hybrid style (even tenderly covering Smokey Robinson's "The Tracks of My Tears"), not trying too hard to be contemporary, although the production touches are there (the album was co-produced by Parton and her bandleader, guitarist Kent Wells), certainly, and her version of Betsy Ulmer and Craig Wiseman's "Jesus & Gravity," even more than "Better Get to Livin'," could well find itself in regular rotation on new country radio stations, at least in a fair and equitable world. Other highlights here include the title song, which shows Parton still in tune with her public image (she really always has been, of course), and the beautiful and delicate original "Only Dreamin'," which shows that, beneath all the big wigs and glamour, Parton is still a fine songwriter with an uncommon sense of grace, economy, and wisdom. Backwoods Barbie might not break the bank out there, and it would take a good deal of marketing and luck for any of these tracks to hit the top of the new country charts, but it shows that Parton can still deliver the package in fine style and only the fools among us would ever count her down and out, no matter how many bluegrass albums she does. Steve Leggett

Entertainment Weekly

Penning most of the material, she offers radio-friendly pep talks (in ''Better Get to Livin','' she declares, ''I'm not the Dalai Lama, but I'll try to offer up a few words of advice'') and '70s-style adultery laments (''She'll know you've been with me alone, and I'm a scent you can't take home,'' she croons in ''Cologne''). [B+] Chris Willman