Dolly Parton – The Great Pretender

This is a great album. Really good covers from the queen of country. A bit over produced, but what can you do? It's the eightees. A good sounding album.

Great for what it is.!! Dolly is in fine voice. Some tasty bass from Leland Sklar. Waddy is onboard for a couple of tracks and The Jordanaires are there as well. The only negative thing (if you want to call it so) is that synthesizers are all over this thing like flies on sh!t... and sometimes I could swear it's Weinberg whacking on those synthesized drums. This is so mid-80s, and it has that sound which automatically dates it. No country here. Dolly covers mainly well-known 60s pop tunes and if you're in the mood, this is good fun. My new 1984 vinyl sounds fine but very digital & clinical... like high heels on a tiled floor. I suppose it's a sign of the times. The main ingredient is here though: Good tunes.!!

This is one of the last of her pop-country albums. It contains mostly cover versions. The first five tracks are very enjoyable especially the singles "Save the Last Dance For Me" and "Downtown". The quality dips on the second five songs including boring renditions of "I Can't Help Myself" and "She Don't Love You". The CD is very rare and pricey if you can find a copy. Val Garay (of Kim Carnes' "Bette Davis Eyes" fame) produced the album. Allegedly there is a handful of unreleased tracks from the sessions for the LP. Maybe one day they will be released.