September 7, 2006, Nashville, TN -- Sugar Hill Records will release Dolly Parton: The Acoustic Collection 1999 - 2002 on October 10, 2006. The Box Set includes the superb trio of bluegrass-tinged albums: The Grass Is Blue, Little Sparrow and Halos and Horns. A fourth bonus-disc includes five new song mixes, 2 performances from the tribute album Just Because I'm A Woman and music videos. Cover artwork and complete liner notes by Stephanie Zacharek and producer Steve Buckingham are available at http://www.sugarhillrecords.com/publicity.

Parton's turn to bluegrass and acoustic music showcases her purity of voice and sublime storytelling talent. As she once said in a New Yorker interview, "My natural thing to do, even if I'm just in a motel room or a suite, or a cottage somewhere, is to sing those old songs that Mama used to sing from my little childhood...This is the music that I loved, that I came out of the Smoky Mountains singing."

The trilogy of acoustic albums is a significant contribution to the newest era of Parton's career that have been noted by honors and awards that highlight her iconic status in music and the arts. She was awarded 2 Grammy Awards and received fervent critical acclaim for the albums. In 1999, she was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and into The Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2001. Parton was named as a Living Legend by the Library of Congress in 2004, and most recently was announced as one of five Kennedy Center Honorees.

"In 1999, at the tail end of a decade in which it had become much harder for classic-country artists like Dolly, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and George Jones to get airplay on country radio, Dolly released an album that astonished even her most ardent, longtime fans -- one that revealed shades of herself that we hadn't quite seen before," says writer Stephanie Zacharek in the liner notes. "The Grass Is Blue is a selection of bluegrass songs (some traditional, some written by the likes of Johnny Cash, Lester Flatt and Billy Joel, and others penned by Dolly herself) whose spare but passionate arrangements cast the beauty and purity of Dolly's voice in a new light. These are the types of songs Dolly grew up singing, as a girl in East Tennessee.

"Two more bluegrass albums followed, Little Sparrow in 2001, and Halos and Horns in 2002. Each of these records has a slightly different mood and flavor, and yet they complement one another with the natural grace of intertwining vines."

For review materials email publicity@sugarhillrecords.com . Websites of note are www.dollymania.net and www.sugarhillrecords.com/publicity.

Source: Sugar Hill Records