The golden era of country duets: Nashville’s glitztest couple collected, across 6 CDs, i6o tracks They, had plenty of competition (George & Tammy, Conway & Loretta, Gram & Emmylou), but the imaginary, immersive world Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner constructed in song – countless variations on affairs of the heart, from true love forever to heartbreak overnight, from tender family ties to no-good boozers and cheaters – stands as a kind of gold standard of country’s classic era. A testament to chemistry, sincerity and the epochal Nashville Sound (see, especially, Pete Drake’s ever-present steel guitar), the duo played their roles to the hilt.
Soap opera and melodrama, impoverished upbringings and working-class strife, husband/ wife squabbles and sexual innuendo, all slathered with generous dollops of sentimentalism, begat a consistent, if slightly predictable, body of work: the faultless „Holding On To Nothinn Jack Clement’s hangdog „Just Someone I Used To Know“; the chart-busting, countrypolitan treacle of „Please Don’t Stop Loving Me“. This set traces it all, from follcsy innocence to an embarrassment of riches (emerging songwriting savvy on the part of both) through to a tense, high-wire denouement – Dolly headed to ‚7os pop super-stardom, Porter, unfairly for sure, to a stint in the where-are-they-now file. EXTRAS! None.
LUKE TORN
941 UNCUT I JUNE 2014