When Dolly Parton bursts onstage to “Baby I’m Burning”, it’s as though someone has flicked the “on” switch in the cavernous Echo Arena. Like a ray of Tennessee sunshine, it takes Parton all of two seconds to warm up the largely female crowd, whom Dolly seizes in her tiny fists and refuses to let go.
“Lord we have some ugly people here tonight”, she says, pointing at the pink furry Stetsons the crowd have paid a tenner for each at the merchandise stand, unable to afford the pillowcases and having no need for a Dolly tea towel.
But even being insulted by Dolly is somehow endearing, such is the level of intimacy she manages to create among the heaving crowd. It’s certainly more endearing than the opening numbers she sings from new middle-of-the road, gospel-tinged album A Better World. With so many classic hits of her own to choose from, there is really no need for her to cover the songs of lesser writers.
Parton (mostly 65) has been so famous for so very long that it’s difficult to pin-down precisely when she became the cartoonish “Backwoods Barbie” of today. Even the many instruments she plays this evening – banjo, guitar, harmonica, dulcimer, auto-harp, piano, (did she really play the saxophone?) – are encrusted in rhinestones.
Yet, as the band strikes up the intro to “Jolene”, recalling a train hurtling along the tracks, we are reminded that the
global Dolly brand was actually built on the surest musical foundations: a country music opera in three minutes flat. It’s mesmerising.
As she accepts yet another instrument from stage-left even Dolly seems genuinely surprised by the Beatle wig her roadie is wearing. It’s a nice touch and the Liverpool crowd goes crazy for her rendition of the Beatles “Help”. That’s the thing about Dolly. You have to leave reason at the door, along with your coat.
A whip-cracking “Muleskinner Blues” signals a change of gear to what Dolly does best. A bluegrass medley, sentimental old songs from and about her “Tennessee Mountain Home”, where grinding poverty was a virtue and you didn’t need shoes when you had Jesus.
The 20-minute interval comes in the nick of time. It was all getting a bit too much, not least the extended plug for her upcoming new movie. So thank goodness for “Little Sparrow”. Delivered a capella with two backing singers, this is sung from the heart of whatever it is that makes us human. Elemental, unforgettable and pitch-perfect yet again, it is this evening’s undoubted musical highlight.
The falling sevenths of “Here You Come Again” show Dolly’s class as a tunesmith and “Islands in the Stream” coaxes the audience onto its feet where it remains for “Nine to Five”, a joyous tribute to minimum wage workers everywhere sung by probably the richest woman this audience has ever set eyes on. But irony has no place in Dollyworld.
“I Will Always Love You” – ”I can’t believe that Whitney screwed up my song”, says a beaming Dolly – sends the audience home in raptures. There is probably not a singer on the planet who could not have learned something from this evening’s performance. In a word: irresistible
