Down In U.K., Gone Down Under
After one week as the No. 1 country album in Great Britain, Dolly: Live From London slips one behind Taylor Swift's Fearless to the No. 2 country spot in the U.K., the charts released Sunday night revealed. The album also dips 11 to No. 44 pop overseas. Elsewhere, The Very Best Of Dolly Parton, Vol. 1, the 2007 Sony's foreign compilation, falls back off the top 20 Australian country albums, down from No. 20 in its 47th chart week there.

Meet-And-Greet In 'CW'
I'm told there's a shot of Dolly meeting fan Courtney Brown backstage at her 2008 Green Bay, Wisc., show in the current issue of Country Weekly. Thanks, Courtney!

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Feb. 6:
Dolly Talks Of Offers From Rock Producers
Many Dolly fans have longed for her to turn over the producing reigns on an album or two to either Rick Rubin (architect of Johnny Cash's American series) or Jack White ("Jolene" cover artist who produced a Grammy-winner for Loretta Lynn), and she hasn't ruled out the possibility. According to an interview with AOL Music U.K. to promote her Dolly: Live From London, she said she had been approached to do just that – although she seemed confused as to whether it was Rubin or White, or both. "I'm certainly not opposed to doing that," she noted, "it's just I usually have a set notion of where I'm headed with a certain project and what I want to get out of it. But Lord only knows what I might do when I get a chance to sit down and think about it again." Read the full interview here. In related news, the CD/DVD set is reviewed by Blog Critics here.

Feb. 5:
Dolly To Honor Kenny In Concert
Kenny Rogers and Dolly, who have a new duet out together as a single, will reunite on stage in April as Dolly takes part in a special concert to honor Rogers' 50th anniversary in the entertainment world that is being taped for a television special. Other preliminary guests announced on Thursday for the show include Lionel Richie, Alison Krauss, Wynonna and the Oak Ridge Boys. The event takes place April 10 at the MGM Grand in Foxwoods, Conn., and tickets will go on sale next Thursday at 9 a.m. online at www.mgmatfoxwoods.com, via phone at 1-866-646-0609 or in person at the casino theatre box office. The identity of the network to air the resulting special will be announced in the future. Learn more from Rogers' official website here. Image of Kenny & Dolly at a 2005 CMT special is courtesy CMT/PR Newswire. Used with permission.

TV Show Seeks Fighting Fans
Have a spouse who just can't take your pilgrimages to Dollywood? Has he or she threatened to toss your Dolly doll collection into the garage? Well, television producers would love to have some fans whose better halves would rather not have to compete with Dolly for your affection. If this sounds familiar to what goes on in your house, e-mail them here to share your story and be considered for an upcoming program.

Little Changes On Charts
Dolly-related releases don't see much impact on the Feb. 13 Billboard charts released Thursday. Steve Martin's The Crow - New Songs for the 5-String Banjo, featuring a Dolly and Vince Gill collaboration, remains steady at No. 2 bluegrass albums in its 50th chart week. The soundtrack to the Drew Barrymore-directed film Whip It, on which she chose to include Dolly's "Jolene," re-enters the soundtrack chart at No. 17 the week of the movie's DVD release. Brad Paisley's Time Well Wasted, with Dolly on "When I Get Where I'm Going," falls back out of the Canadian top 50 country albums, down from No. 45. Lady Antebellum sees its Need You Know debut at No. 1 pop and country with 481,000 units moved in its first week, while Taylor Swift's Fearless loses one to No. 2 country albums and three to No. 13 pop in its 64th week

Hug A Dolly Bear
Bid on a Dolly-autographed stuffed bear symbolizing her first Broadway outing as the Tony-nominated composer and lyricist of 9 To 5: The Musical in the annual auction to benefit the charity Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Bids will be accepted here through Feb. 13.

Combo Set Moved To Feb. 16
The three-disc Original Album Classic CD release combining the Dolly titles Eagle When She Flies, Slow Dancing With The Moon and White Limozeen previously mentioned here will now hit stores in the U.K. on Feb. 16 and will be available in the U.S. as an import from Amazon.com here.

More 'London' Press
Check out a Dolly interview with London's The Daily Mail here to promote her CD/DVD Dolly: Live From London.

Another W.V. County Adopts Library
Expansion of Dolly's Imagination Library into Hancock County, W.V., is covered in The Review here. Ed. Note: The original report here said Hancock County, Ohio, because the newspaper that reported it is located in Ohio, alebit on the state line, but the story was actually about a neighboring county in West Virginia.

Feb. 4:
Dolly's Park Launches New Site
Check out the spiffy new website for Dollywood, which includes sections for the adjacent Splash Country water park and the recently-added Dollywood Vacations cabin rentals. The site even features your own account registration and comments sections. Plus, thanks to Chris for pointing out coverage of this year's new ride addition, Adventure Mountain, from WJHL here.

Feb. 3:
Win A Meeting With Dolly
Very few details on Dolly's March 12 appearance in Nashville to officially open her retail store on Second Avenue have been released, but her official record label website, DollyPartonMusic.net, on Tuesday revealed that 15 lucky fans will get to meet her at the event. Unfortunately, this suggests that she won't be one-on-one with any other fans that day, such as if she were to set up a CD signing that many fans have written to me in recent weeks hoping she would do, which means most likely she will only appear on a stage for remarks or a ribbon cutting or similar brief event at least some distance from the general public. However, three separate contests will be running to choose the meet-and-greet winners. Members of the website's Dollyites online fan club may send an e-mail through Feb. 12 to enter for a chance at one out of five of the passes, members of the website's Big Wigs street team must recruit a new Big Wigs member and send an e-mail through Feb. 12 with the new user's username to enter for one of the next five, and people who are not members of either of those must watch for a message at noon Friday to be posted on the Twitter account that the record label runs for her here and they'll have 12 hours to re-Tweet the message to their own followers to enter the contest. Fans who are members of both groups may enter all three contests to increase their chances of winning. Further details of all three contests are on the label's website.

Feb. 1:
'London' Hits No. 1 In England
Dolly has the top country album this week in the U.K. as her Dolly: Live From London also debuts at No. 33 pop overseas, making one of her career worst-performing albums in the U.S. one of her best-performing in Great Britain, where the concert was recorded. In the U.S., the release had topped out at just No. 36 country, ranking as her worst-charted non-holiday new recording ever, and No. 195 pop. Sony released and promoted the album in the U.K. The label also released its four-CD Dolly boxed set there on the same day, but it did not debut in the top 75 pop albums.

'9 To 5' Loses Grammy
Dolly's 45th Grammy nomination, her first for her own Dolly Records label, didn't bring home another gramophone for her trophy case, as the new version of West Side Story on Sunday beat out her 9 To 5: The Musical for Best Musical Show Album. Dolly had been nominated as the show's musical composer and lyricist as well as one of the producers of the cast album. She had shared the nomination with fellow album producer Stephen Oremus and album co-producer Alex Lacamoire. Had she won, it would have been her eighth career Grammy.

Tampa Gets Show
In related news, the Straz Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa is the third location to announce that the show's national tour will stop there in its 2010-2011 season. The musical is scheduled to be performed in the Florida city Oct. 19-24. Other known engagements (as the full tour schedule has yet to be released) are the tour kick-off Sept. 21-26 in Nashville followed by Sept. 28-Oct. 3 in Atlanta, so there likely will be two other multi-night performances in other cities between Atlanta and Tampa.

Hanging On Down Under
Britain's not the only place with some Dolly on the tally, as The Very Best Of Dolly Parton, Vol. 1, Sony's 2007 overseas compilation CD, remains steady at No. 20 on the Australian country albums chart in its 47th chart week there.

Dollywood Notes
Thanks to a Dollywood fan for passing along that the park just launched its first official Facebook page here and that its Thunderhead roller coaster has made a new list of the top 10 wooden coasters in the country. The Los Angeles Times polled group of coaster experts and based on their votes the coaster ranked ninth overall here, although one of the experts in the group chose it as his No. 1 pick. The paper is also taking reader votes here, and as of press time Sunday night it ranked third in the public poll.

Dolly On The BBC
Thanks to Gerard for alerting me to a BBC Radio2 interview with Dolly on Michael Ball's Sunday Brunch. She covers many topics starting just over one hour and 16 minutes into the program (following "I Can't Fight This Feeling" from the cast of my favorite show, Glee), available online for six days here. Apparently, a longer excerpt from the interview will air on Tuesday, March 2.

Latest Library News
Dolly's Imagination Library in Louisiana was profiled recently in The Opelousas Daily World. Check out the coverage here. And several more communities in Alaska are getting the program, according to a weekend report from The Juneau Empire here.

Jan. 29:
Bye-Bye, 'London'
After just 10 weeks on the U.S. country albums chart, Dolly: Live From London is gone. The CD/DVD combo falls out of the 75-position tally this week, down from No., 67 the previous week, the Feb. 6 Billboard numbers showed. The set had peaked at No. 36 country to make it the worst-performing non-compilation, non-holiday release of Dolly's career. It had lasted just one week on the top 200 pop charts, marking a spot at No. 195, her worst standing with a non-compilation set on that list in over a decade. All eyes will turn to the U.K. this weekend to see where the release debuts on the British charts, which some observers have speculated could be as high as the top 40 pop there, something that if it occurs would most likely make it the No. 1 country album there, a strong contrast with its performance in the U.S. On other charts, Brad Paisley's Time Well Wasted, featuring Dolly on "When I Get Where I'm Going," re-enters the Canadian top 50 country albums at No. 45. Steve Martin's The Crow - New Songs for the 5-String Banjo, which incudes its Dolly collaboration, dips one to No. 2 U.S. bluegrass albums in its 49th chart week. Taylor Swift's Fearless remains steady at No. 1 country albums and falls two to No. 10 pop with 32,000 copies sold in its 63rd week, while the self-titled Lady Antebellum holds on at No. 2 country and drops two to No. 16 pop in its 93rd week.

Another 'London' Review
Dolly's CD/DVD set gets a so-so review from Winnipeg's Uptown Magazine in Canada this week. Read the "B-" scored review here.

Swift Flattery
Taylor Swift thinks its great to be compared to Dolly, she said in a recent interview. Blog Angry Ape cited the comments here that the Dolly references are "a really awesome compliment" given Dolly's songwriting prowess and quick wit.

Park Up For Awards
Thanks to Chris for alerting me that Dollywood has two rides up for honors in the Attraction Awards of the Decade poll at Coaster 101 here: its staff for Best Park Employees and its Thunderhead for Best Wooden Coaster. As of press time, the coaster was running third out of seven and the staff second to Disney World's.

Jan. 27:
Historic DVD Comes Out
Country's Greatest Stars Live Vol. 1, the classic 1978 television special co-hosted by Dolly and featuring several performances by her, hit DVD shelves Tuesday from Shout! Factory and the Country Music Hall of Fame. Get your copy here!

Talking Up Some Dolly
The former special events director for Pigeon Forge, Tenn., now a Florida resident, chatted this week with The Orlando Sentinel about his time with the city, including some very kind words for its most famous businesswoman. Check it out here.

Jan. 25:
U.K. Fans Get Double Dolly
For our friends across the pond who haven't ordered either one as an import yet, don't forget that Monday brings Sony's European release of its four-CD Dolly boxed set and its distribution overseas of Dolly Records' Dolly: Live From London. Both were mentioned over the weekend in The Leicester Mercury, which gave her concert CD/DVD four out of five stars and noted that the boxed set is "a must for all Dolly enthusiasts." Read more here.

Hello Dolly Down Under
After a couple months' absence, The Very Best Of Dolly Parton, Vol. 1, the 2007 overseas compilation disc, re-enters the top 20 Down Under at No. 20 on the Australian country albums chart.

Alaska Family Rewarded
Working once a week to enroll children in Dolly's Imagination Library, logging nearly 500 hours of community service over the past three years, one Juneau, Alaska, family's work with Dolly's literacy program has earned them the title of 2010 State Volunteer Family of the Year and a vacation. Read more from The Juneau Empire here.

For the archive of monthly news stories, click here.