Consumer Guide Album

A Way to Make a Living: The Dolly Parton Songbook [Ace, 2023]
From the title provided by shrewd opener "Nine to Five"--one of just two Parton vocals on this 24-track tribute to a national treasure who could live opulently off the publishing royalties she declines to hoard--to an inspired closing sequence passed from Hank Williams Jr. to Nana Mouskouri to RuPaul to Tina Turner, Ace compiler Tony Rounce has dug out keepers by Maria Muldaur, Rhiannon Giddens, Sally Timms, and believe it or not the Incredible String Band. Even the White Stripes' overwrought "Jolene" has the virtue of highlighting the distressing fact that Patti Smith has never released her incendiary version. I find Bettye Lavette and Percy Sledge's soul somewhat sludgy and a few B-list country covers flat, but it's the rare tribute album that doesn't dip now and then, and it's also the rare tribute album that introduces us hoi polloi to previously unnoticeds as striking as "I Lived So Fast and Hard," "Nickels and Dimes," and "Put It Off Until Tomorrow." Not only that, either--in the end it's more revealing than Dolly's most recent best-of, 2022's shrewdly entitled Diamonds & Rhinestones, which I purchased out of sheer, unbridled respect. A-