Dolly Parton is "feeling saxy", she says. Liverpool titters. The country megastar has just whipped out a twinkling bonsai horn. She has personally customised her "itty bitty sax" with rhinestones for tonight's tour-opening Liverpool date – or so she quips.
Parton knows she didn't play sax last time she did the Echo Arena, an example of the kind of attention to detail that can keep a girl in showbiz for half a century. She plays the Benny Hill theme tune on the saxophone, then plays it again backwards – an act of musical virtuosity and corniness that sums up Parton's enduring modus operandi. You can go from whoop to cringe to hanky in moments at a Parton show – less a gig than a life-affirming seminar with dozens of killer tunes, where the anecdotes between songs and the songs that tell stories soon merge into a charm offensive interrupted only by sips of water and men handing Parton instruments.
In addition to the sax, she plays banjo, harmonica, fiddle, recorder, dulcimer, autoharp and guitars acoustic and electric. She is an old-time pro with a well-worn script, but there's room for spontaneity too. "Echo, echo, echo," Parton jokes. Liverpool swoons.
God, Tennessee, her momma and her daddy are frequently invoked in this engaging but repetitive two-and-a-half hour monologue (there's a 20-minute interval), as is the importance of honouring one's home, following one's dreams and being tolerant of others. Quite how this tolerance of religious or sexual difference squares with Parton's enthusiasm for "that old-time religion" is never explained. God seems even bigger now than he did in 2007, when I last saw a Dolly show.
Him aside, things with Parton are the same as ever – studded with facets, a potent mixture of harmonised heartache and hoke. There's a new album to promote but it dovetails neatly into the set list. Blue Smoke came out in the UK last Monday, and even though tonight is the opening night of her European tour, its songs already seem like Parton standards. The title track is a seriously catchy leaving song in which the blue smoke of the mountains swirls into the blue smoke of a steam train. "Choo choo choo, woo woo woo," Parton sings, with utter conviction. We are, by now, on board.
Tonight, as on the new album, Parton covers Bob Dylan's Don't Think Twice, It's All Right, adding a little harmonica and a lot of harmonising, making it sound as old as the hills. It's hard to think of another Dylan fan who praises the old curmudgeon's melodies rather than his sense of cool.
You wouldn't think there was a lot of depth to extract from a Bon Jovi tune, but Parton takes the soft rockers to church, teasing out the gospel from Lay Your Hands on Me, a song originally about heavy petting. Quite how many eras Parton has lived through (and filleted for cover material) is driven home by her sincere version of Fine Young Cannibals' She Drives Me Crazy (not on the album, but a mainstay of her sets). In case anyone feels discombobulated by the genre gymnastics, jokes about the cost of looking cheap and Parton's parents being horny hillbillies come thick and fast, as familiar to long-time Parton-watchers as her superlative songs.
Parton herself is utterly unchanging. When someone has undergone this much enhancement, there is often a disconnect between the youthfulness of their mask and the sprightliness of their gait. Parton swaggers up and down the stage in heels, swinging an electric guitar like a drag version of PJ Harvey dipped in bleach and glitter. She is 68. Her voice is perfect. Her acrylic talons come in handy on that autoharp. You don't expect a feminist icon to come with built-in airbags, but Parton is a trailblazer cunningly disguised as something far less threatening, one who has seen a lot and walked away from the wreckage.
Will she play Jolene? Of course she will – immaculately, thanking Jolene for the bucks that song has earned. Will she tell you about how good her momma was at sewing, which instantly sends the crowd into raptures? She does. We know Coat of Many Colours is coming, and its tale of poverty and mockery never fails to hit the solar plexus.
Everyone here will have their preferred version of Dolly – the writer of 9 to 5, the love balladeer whose I Will Always Love You turns 40 this year, the supplier of free books to pre-schoolers – but judging from the shouts of "Dolleeee", the rootsiest iteration wins the night. Parton will start a song like Little Sparrow a cappella, sending shivers through the arena. Her three backing singers will come in a few lines later, magnifying the intensity. The six-strong band will sashay in, keeping a respectful distance from the vocals. All the artifice just makes the raw material gleam all the more.
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