Live & Well
There isn't a more ebullient live performer in all of popular music than Dolly Parton, as this chatty concert recording attests. Though Parton had been on hiatus from touring for a decade, she reconnects here with an audience that extends from country traditionalists to drag queens (to whom she dedicates her classic "Jolene"). Banjo and fiddle drive the acoustic arrangements and bluegrass harmonies highlight the choruses as Parton surveys a career-spanning selection of material on this two-disc set, applying her signature vocal quaver to hits from "Coat of Many Colors" to "9 to 5" and "I Will Always Love You." The concert extends her musical terrain toLed Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven,"Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush," and a breathy rendition ofBread's "If," while an a cappella medley renews the likes of "Islands in the Stream" and "Here You Come Again." Parton's in fine voice throughout and even better spirits, spending almost as much time bantering with the crowd as she does singing. Where many live recordings are little more than songs with applause, this is the full Dolly.--Don McLeese