Little Sparrow (CD - 2001)

Personnel includes: Dolly Parton, Maura O'Connell (vocals); Bryan Sutton (guitar); Jerry Douglas (resophonic guitar); Mike Snider (clawhammer banjo); Jim Mills (banjo); Steve Buckingham (dulcimer, autoharp); Chris Thile (mandolin); Stuart Duncan (fiddle); Richard Dennison, Chip Davis, Monty Allen (drone); John Mock (whistle, harmonium); Barry Bales (bass); Sonya Isaacs, Becky Isaacs Bowman, Carl Jackson, Rebecca Lynn Howard, Dan Tyminski, Rhonda Vincent, Darrin Vincent, Keith Little, Claire Lynch (background vocals).

Altan: Mairead Ni Mhaonaighi (vocals); Daithi Sproule (guitar); Ciaran Curran (bouzouki); Ciaran Tourish (whistle); Dermot Byrne (accordion).

Recorded at Oceanway & The Doghouse, Nashville, Tennessee & Schnee Studio, Los Angeles, California.

"Shine" won the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Personnel includes: Dolly Parton, Maura O'Connell (vocals); Bryan Sutton (guitar); Jerry Douglas (resophonic guitar); Mike Snider (clawhammer banjo); Jim Mills (banjo); Steve Buckingham (dulcimer, autoharp); Chris Thile (mandolin); Stuart Duncan (fiddle); Richard Dennison, Chip Davis, Monty Allen (drone); John Mock (whistle, harmonium); Barry Bales (bass); Sonya Isaacs, Becky Isaacs Bowman, Carl Jackson, Rebecca Lynn Howard, Dan Tyminski, Rhonda Vincent, Darrin Vincent, Keith Little, Claire Lynch (background vocals).

Altan: Mairead Ni Mhaonaighi (vocals); Daithi Sproule (guitar); Ciaran Curran (bouzouki); Ciaran Tourish (whistle); Dermot Byrne (accordion).

Recorded at Oceanway & The Doghouse, Nashville, Tennessee & Schnee Studio, Los Angeles, California.

"Shine" won the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance.

Personnel: Dolly Parton (vocals); Carl Jackson (bass voice); Ciarán Tourish (whistling, mandolin); John Mock (whistling, harmonium); Daíthí Sproule, Mark Kelly, Bryan Sutton (guitar); Jerry Douglas (resonator guitar); Jim Mills (banjo); Mike Snider (claw hammer banjo); Ciarán Curran (bouzouki); Steve Buckingham (dulcimer, autoharp); Chris Thile (mandolin); Stuart Duncan (fiddle); Dermot Byrne (accordion); Pat McInerney (percussion).

Audio Mixer: Gary Paczosa.

Recording information: OceanWay; Schnee Studio, L.A; The Doghouse, Nashville, TN.

Editor: Neal Cappellino.

Illustrator: Barry Etris.

Photographers: Jim Herrington; Terry Herd; Gary Paczosa; Greg Allen; Mary E. Yeomans.

Translator: Proinsias O'Maonaigh.

Arranger: Dolly Parton.

Though Dolly Parton had been exploring her musical roots to various degrees throughout the last half of the '90s, her true return to form didn't occur until the release of the Grammy-winning The Grass Is Blue, and its 2001 follow-up, Little Sparrow. Critics and fans alike agreed that the latter record was easily among the best Parton had ever recorded, and that was certainly saying something. One of the leading tracks on Little Sparrow was its love-wary title track, which kicked off an album that was filled with enough heartache-related songs to cover three separate country records. Parton's lyrics use the familiar folk metaphor of symbolizing a bird as freedom and rebirth, and she looks to it wishing to escape a world that has crumbled due to a insincere lover. She grippingly moans, "Little sparrow, flies so high, feels no pain," while fantasizing, "If I were a little sparrow, oe'r these mountains I would fly/I would find him, I would find him/look into his lying eye." Besides simple escape, Parton also wants justification for her sorrow, singing "I would flutter all around him...I would ask him/why he let me love him then." By the end of the song, however, she realizes she is merely a victim of an "evil cunning scheme," leaving no other lesson to pass on to her "maidens fair and tender" other than "never trust the hearts of men, for they will crush you like a sparrow." By this time, Parton has realized that even the sparrow is a victim of man's evil, and it is only free until it meets up with a man, who will casually destroy it. It's an ingenious metaphor that, along with a slow, aching melody, and a flawless production and performance, helps round out what is truly one of the best songs Dolly Parton has written in years. ~ Barry Weber

This is the second installment in Dolly Parton's bluegrass album trilogy. Like its predecessor, LITTLE SPARROW finds Parton temporarily eschewing the highly produced pop-country that made her a household name in favor of all-acoustic arrangements that reach back to the earliest days of country.

While Parton employs some of bluegrass's hottest pickers here, it's her own soulful but humble singing style and songwriting abilities (her self-penned tunes dominate the album) that impress the most. Equally remarkable is the way she bends decidedly non-bluegrass source material to suit the concept. Cole Porter's "I Get a Kick Out of You" and Collective Soul's "Shine" certainly don't seem like they'd be feasible bluegrass fare, but Parton and company transform them so completely that one almost forgets their origins. minimize