Dolly Returns To Recording Studio
Dolly is back in the studio recording, according to a Facebook posting here by Dolly backup singer Richard Dennison on Tuesday. He shared an image with Dolly and fellow backups Vicki Hampton and Jennifer O'Brien featuring the caption: "Well another great day doing BGV's in the studio with my favorite girl singers!!! These three are just the BEST!!!!! We always have a great time together...." No word on the project, but Dolly had announced last year that a new Christmas album would be released this year, and as was previously reported here she's adding three songs to her children's album which is also expected to be available possibly by year-end, so it could be related to either release.

Miss Piggy Based On Dolly
Did you know Miss Piggy was partially based on Dolly? An article this week in The Economist here reviews a Jim Henson exhibit at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens which includes the Muppets creator's handwritten notes that the character, who debuted in 1976, should have elements of Dolly, Martha Mitchell (the controversial wife of Nixon's attorney general) and Oscar-winner Shelley Winters "by way of Fredericks of Hollywood" and "dresses like someone 10 years younger."

July 24:
'Just Because I'm A Woman' Vinyl Due Sept. 1
Music On Vinyl, the import boutique music label behind reissues of the classic Dolly albums Jolene and Coat Of Many Colors on vinyl the past couple of years, has revealed it will put out Dolly's second solo album, 1968's Just Because I'm A Woman from RCA Victor, on 180-gram audiophile vinyl as a reissue coming out Sept. 1. Amazon.com is taking pre-orders, expecting to ship the imports to U.S. customers on Sept. 8. Get yours here!

Kenny Tribute Sells Out Immediately
Tickets for the Oct. 25 Nashville tribute concert to Kenny Rogers, which he announced last week will be his final public duet performance with Dolly prior to his retirement, went on sale to the public Friday morning via Ticketmaster and sold out immediately. A pre-sale allotment quickly sold out on Tuesday, prompting the release of more seats for the pre-sale which remained available until the public sale date. Rogers told Billboard he and Dolly may only sing one song, "Islands In The Stream," at the show, although the final decision on how many they will perform has not yet been made. "Whether we do something else, I don't know. That would require a rehearsal and I don't know that Dolly or I, either one, are up for that," he said here.

Overseas Chart Updates Reported
The Complete Trio Collection Deluxe this week re-enters the top 10 on the British country compilation albums chart, rising six to No. 10 in its 45th chart week, it was announced Friday. On the same tally, Emmylou Harris' Original Album Series: Volume 1 (with two Dolly covers, one track with Dolly harmony and one track with Trio harmony by Dolly and Linda Ronstadt) loses two to No. 20 and Ronstadt's Original Album Series (featuring one Dolly cover and one track with Dolly harmony) re-enters the top 20 at No. 19. Down Under, My Dear Companion: Selections From The Trio Collection by Dolly, Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt re-enters the top 40 Australian country albums tally at No. 34 for a 41st chart week, it was revealed Saturday.

July 19:
Kenny & Dolly Announce Final Concert Appearance Oct. 25
Kenny Rogers on Tuesday announced a star-studded concert Oct. 25 at Nashville's Bridgestone Arena would be his final public performance with longtime duet partner Dolly. "All In For The Gambler: Kenny Rogers' Farewell Concert Celebration" will be taped for television broadcast and CD release, although details of airings or release information have not been announced. Tickets are available at Ticketmaster.com (using presale code GAMBLER through 10 p.m. Central Thursday; public tickets go on sale 10 a.m. Central Friday). Other artists scheduled to perform cover songs of Rogers' biggest hits include Little Big Town, Alison Krauss, The Flaming Lips, Idina Menzel, Jamey Johnson, Elle King and more.

In a press release, Rogers explained: "As I'm bringing this chapter of my career to a close, this will be an unforgettable way to celebrate with my talented friends, who I'm so grateful to have crossed paths with. It means so much that they would feel compelled to do this for me. Of course, the night would not be the same without Dolly Parton being part of it. We've enjoyed a special friendship for decades, and I'll forever look back fondly on the many collaborations, performances, and laughs we've shared as some of the most extraordinary moments of my career. I know it will be a moving experience for us standing on that stage together for one last time."

In a statement, Dolly added: "Kenny is like a family member to me. We have been friends for over 30 years and made musical magic together. Since 1983, when we released 'Islands In The Stream,' everyone has had an expectation to see Kenny everywhere I go and me with him wherever he goes. Well, I guess for many of those fans that wanted to see us together, this will be that night. Performing with Kenny for the last time ever on October 25th is going to be emotional for both of us, but it's also going to be very special. Even though Kenny may be retiring, as he fades from the stage, our love for each other will never fade away."

Although the pair first performed together on Dolly's syndicated 1976-77 variety show, it wasn't until Barry Gibb brought Dolly in halfway through producing "Islands In The Stream" that they recorded together. The song was the year's biggest-selling single and topped the pop and country charts. Its success spawned a Christmas album and television special, an HBO concert special, an NBC concert special, a string of duets on each others' albums over the years and a handful of concert tours together. In addition, Dolly covered his composition "Sweet Music Man" and he covered her song "The Stranger." Their collaborations are:

'Gay Of Thrones' Touts Dolly Tune
Dolly's "9 To 5" made an appearance in this week's Funny Or Die series Gay Of Thrones, which comically recaps Game Of Thrones. Watch it here.

'Billboard' Lists Dolly's Best Songs
Billboard on Tuesday decided to have its music critics rank Dolly's 15 best recordings. See what they were here.

'Entertainment Weekly' Praises Dolly Comeback
Entertainment Weekly counted down on Tuesday several of Dolly's recent achievements, saying she is certainly having a "pop culture moment" right now. Read what they had to say here.

Realtor.com Looks At Former Dolly Getaway Home
Wonder what treasures are in Dolly's former second home in Nashville, which is currently on the market? Realtor.com took a peek at the Dolly-related items that come with the multi-million-dollar listing here.

Newspaper Checks Out First Appearances
The Tennessean this week looked at several female entertainers' first appearances in the newspaper, including Dolly's. Check it out here.

Paper Chronicles How A Dolly Library Book Ships
The Knoxville News-Sentinel this week looked at what it takes to get Dolly's 1 million Imagination Library books mailed each month. Check out the story here.

Musgraves Enjoys Dollywood Bachelorette Party
Kacey Musgraves recently took to Dollywood for her bachelorette party, Taste Of Country reported here.

RuPaul Play Gets Greater Streams
A RuPaul Drag Race lip-synch for your life translates into greater sales and greater streams for the featured songs, Billboard has found, but in the most-recent season, Dolly was the big winner. Her "Baby I'm Burning," featured in the Farrah Moan and Alexis Michelle battle, saw a 2,114 percent increase in streams for the week following the broadcast to 37,000. Second place for the season was Whitney Houston's "So Emotional" in the final battle with a 510 percent increase. Read more here.

July 17:
Haskell Reacts To Emmy Nod
Dolly Parton's Christmas Of Many Colors: Circle Of Love co-executive producer Sam Haskell is also thrilled the project earned an Emmy nomination, according to interviews with Hotty Toddy here and The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal here, which also notes that Warner Brothers and NBC both plan Emmy voter campaigns to encourage votes for the movie to win the award.

Dolly Show Overseas
The Latitude Festival in Suffolk, England, features a Dolly-fan-based show this year called Dolly Would. Learn about it from The Reviews Hub here.

July 15:
'These Old Bones' Film Coming To CMT
Dolly will soon film a CMT movie based on her song "These Old Bones" in which she will play the clairvoyant old woman and should release her long-awaited children's CD possibly by the end of the year. The announcements came a few weeks ago at the biennial Imagination Library conference, video of which the charity posted Thursday to YouTube here. It was noted that Dolly's appearance in the CMT film will be much different than usual, and the children's album will include three new songs in addition to the 12 songs from Dollywood Penguin Playhouse shows and audio book version of her I Am A Rainbow that had been sold in limited edition to conference attendees in 2015.

Dolly 'Excited' About Emmy Nomination
Dolly on Friday reacted to her Best TV Film Emmy nomination, saying in a statement: "I am so very proud and excited to have Christmas of Many Colors be nominated for an Emmy award. Special thanks to my partner and executive producer Sam Haskell, a wonderful cast and crew, Steve Herek (our producer) and Pamela Long for a great script. And a special thanks to all of the many fans that watched it." Star Jennifer Nettles added: "This project for me was a celebration of the family and the beautiful story of Miss Dolly Parton. Each day I played Avie Lee Parton was a joy. For Christmas of Many Colors to be nominated and celebrated further by the Emmy's, thrills me."

Dolly Enjoys Tea Shop Visit
Dolly this week took a visit to a small town Tennessee tea shop with her sister, according to The Smokey Barn here.

U.K. Chart Updates
The Complete Trio Collection Deluxe this week dips two on the British country compilation albums chart to No. 16 in its 44th chart week, it was announced Friday. On the same tally, Emmylou Harris' Original Album Series: Volume 1 (with two Dolly covers, one track with Dolly harmony and one track with Trio harmony by Dolly and Linda Ronstadt) holds steady at No. 18.

July 14:
'Colors' Scores Emmy Nomination
Dolly Parton's Christmas Of Many Colors: Circle Of Love on Thursday received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Made For Television Movie. The nod is given in the name of the production companies behind the project: Dixie Pixie Productions (Dolly's company), Magnolia Hill Productions (Sam Haskell's company) and Warner Brothers Television. The NBC film faces off against HBO's The Wizard of Lies, Netflix's Black Mirror, HBO's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and PBS's Sherlock: The Lying Detective. Winners will be announced Sept. 17. This isn't Dolly's first brush with the Television Academy, as she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a Variety or Musical in 1978 for her appearance on Cher . . . Special. In addition, her ABC Dolly variety show was nominated for camerawork and won a sound-mixing "Technical Emmy" while Kenny, Dolly, & Willie: Something Inside So Strong was nominated in 1989 for lighting and won sound-mixing, and an episode of The Midnight Special hosted by Dolly was nominated in 1979 for camerawork.

July 12:
Dolly Dollars Are No More
The fan popular Dolly Dollar program at Dollywood has ended, the park has officially announced to employees. This week's employee newsletter contained the notice that the park stopped issuing the park-only currency this year and will keep any existing back-stock for park archives and not sell them to the public. The report stated: "While we apologize to collectors, the Dolly Dollar program has been diminishing for several years, causing us to end the program." Coincidentally, Disney ended its similar Disney Dollars program at its theme parks last year.

Dolly No. 4 Country Earner For Year, Not No. 5
Forbes magazine on Tuesday released its official list of the 10 highest-paid country music entertainers of the year, and as was originally reported here when the list of the 100 highest paid entertainers in the world came out a month ago, Dolly's $37 million pre-tax estimated earnings (which put her at No. 71 worldwide) made her the highest-paid female country entertainer of the year. She was the only female artist in the top 10, ranking No. 4 in the genre (Dollymania.net had listed her at No. 5 because I considered Jimmy Buffett a country artist, making him No. 2, but the official Forbes country list does not include him, so they must consider him a pop artist, like Taylor Swift). The magazine noted her 63-date North American tour grossed mid-six-figures at most performances (in general, the magazine estimates that artists keep about half of the grosses from concert tours, so the tour's $31 million gross contributed about $15.5 million to her total), and that she also saw revenue from her music publishing and Dollywood. Last year, without a new album or tour, she ranked No. 13 on the country list solely for her estimated $19 million in business income that year, which they noted came primarily from Dollywood. The magazine's totals cover June 1, 2016, to June 1, 2017. See the full list here.

Ronstadt Special Edition Coming
A 40th anniversary special edition of Linda Ronstadt's 1977 album Simple Dreams will be released Sept. 15 on CD, vinyl and download, it was announced Tuesday. In addition to her top five pop hits "Blue Bayou" and "It's So Easy," the album featured her Grammy-nominated top 10 country single with Dolly, "I Never Will Marry," although Dolly was not officially credited on the single or nomination. The expanded version will feature newly remastered versions of the 10 original songs plus live tracks of "It's So Easy," "Blue Bayou" and "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" from a 1980 HBO concert. Advance order the CD here, vinyl version here and MP3 here.

U.S. Chart Update
The July 22 Billboard numbers revealed Tuesday see PTX Vol. IV: Classics, featuring Pentatonix's Grammy-award-winning collaboration with Dolly on a cover of her "Jolene," inch up one on the top 100 current albums chart to No. 96 for a 12th chart week.

July 10:
U.K., Aussie Chart Updates
The Complete Trio Collection Deluxe this week falls four on the British country compilation albums chart to No. 14 in its 43rd chart week, it was announced Friday. On the same tally, Emmylou Harris' Original Album Series: Volume 1 (with two Dolly covers, one track with Dolly harmony and one track with Trio harmony by Dolly and Linda Ronstadt) loses two to No. 18 and Ronstadt's Original Album Series (featuring one Dolly cover and one track with Dolly harmony) drops out of the top 20, down from No. 18. Down Under, My Dear Companion: Selections From The Trio Collection by Dolly, Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt drops back out of the top 40 Australian country albums tally, down from No. 36 in its 40th chart week, it was revealed Saturday.

July 7:
Kesha Announces Upcoming Dolly Duet
Pop singer Kesha on Thursday announced her first album in five years, Rainbow, will be released Aug. 11 and will feature a duet with Dolly. The song? A cover of Dolly's 1980 No. 1 "Old Flames (Can't Hold A Candle To You)," which happened to be co-written by Kesha's mother, Pebe Sebert. Other guests on the album include Eagles of Death Metal and The Dap-Kings Horns. Check out coverage of the announcement from Entertainment Weekly here and order the CD here, vinyl here, "clean" download here and explicit lyrics download here.

Carly Pearce Covers '9 To 5'
Newcomer Carly Pearce recently appeared on The Bobby Bones Show and sang a cover of Dolly's "9 To 5." Check it out on AOL's The Boot here.

Former Dolly Property On The Market
One of the Nashville properties owned by Dolly and husband Carl Dean from 1980 and 1996 is on the market, Patch.com reports here. Asking price of the four-bedroom home is $1.2 million.

Site Chats With Dolly's TV Grandpa
Award-watching site Gold Derby spoke with Gerald McRaney about his career, including his recent turns as Dolly's grandfather in her NBC movies. Watch the interview here.

U.S. Chart Update
The July 15 Billboard numbers released Tuesday see PTX Vol. IV: Classics, featuring Pentatonix's Grammy-award-winning collaboration with Dolly on a cover of her "Jolene," re-enter the top 100 current albums chart at No. 97 for an 11th chart week.

Can Dollywood Be Fun For Adults?
An adult visit to Dollywood without kids to determine if it's still fun was the goal of a piece on Wide Open Country here. (Spoiler: He found it was still fun.)

July 3:
'Dolly' July 3-4 Marathon Returns To GET TV
GET TV appears to be making the Independence Day week Dolly marathon an annual event, not only scheduling it again for this year but expanding it with two additional programs. On Monday, the night before Independence Day, and early into the July 4 morning, the network will air the same six episodes of her 1976-77 half-hour variety show as last year (featuring Kenny Rogers, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, The Parton Family, Lynn Anderson, and Anne Murray) starting at 9 p.m. Eastern. New this year, those shows will be followed by Mac Davis' 1977 television special Sounds Like Home featuring Dolly, Tom Jones and Donna Summer and an episode of The Merv Griffin Show from 1980 with Dolly and Gloria Swanson. Then the evening repeats starting at 2 a.m. (although the Anne Murray episode of Dolly will not repeat, nor will The Merv Griffin Show).

'Baby Driver' Discusses Dolly
Several reviews of the new film Baby Driver about bank robbers with a young millennial getaway driver obsessed with music have noted it contains a scene where "Baby" and a bank teller bond over their mutual admiration for Dolly, including Stanford Daily here. The film's ending recalls that scene, the film's director has noted here, since he focuses on a rainbow in the final seconds and Dolly's famous rainbow quote is discussed in the earlier scene.

Overseas Chart Updates
The Complete Trio Collection Deluxe this week loses three on the British country compilation albums chart to No. 10 in its 42nd chart week, it was announced Friday. On the same tally, Emmylou Harris' Original Album Series: Volume 1 (with two Dolly covers, one track with Dolly harmony and one track with Trio harmony by Dolly and Linda Ronstadt) dips four to No. 16 and Ronstadt's Original Album Series (featuring one Dolly cover and one track with Dolly harmony) drops four to No. 18. Down Under, My Dear Companion: Selections From The Trio Collection by Dolly, Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt re-enters the top 40 Australian country albums chart at No. 36 for a 40th week, it was revealed Saturday.