by Bill Carpenter
If the listener senses déjà vu, it's only the idea they've heard before. Parton tried an album of covers called The Great Pretender in 1983 or so; those pop arrangements of &Downtown& and &Save the Last Dance for Me& did very well on the country charts, but flopped on the pop charts. For this go-round, Parton has compiled mostly country chestnuts. Parton's voice is sweet, often sinewy. These arrangements are clean and for the most part faithful to the original arrangements. None other than die-hard Parton fans will find real excitement in Charlie Rich's &Behind Closed Doors,& Merle Haggard's &Today I Started Loving You Again,& Freddy Fender's &Before the Next Teardrop Falls& (although there's a nice Spanish sequence with David Hidalgo sharing vocals), and Ray Price's &For the Good Times.& ... Read More...