| Coat of Many Colors | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by Dolly Parton | ||||
| Released | October 2, 1971 | |||
| Recorded | March - April, 1971, RCA Studio "B", Nashville | |||
| Genre | Country music | |||
| Length | 27:26 | |||
| Label | RCA | |||
| Producer | Bob Ferguson | |||
| Dolly Parton chronology | ||||
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| Alternative covers | ||||
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Cover of Joshua & Coat Of Many Colors
|
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| Singles from Coat of Many Colors | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [1] |
| Robert Christgau | (A-)[2] |
| Music Box | [3] |
| Pitchfork Media | (7.0/10)[4] |
| Stylus Magazine | (A-)[5] |
| Uncut | [6] |
| This table needs to be expanded using prose. See the guideline for more information. | |
Coat of Many Colors is the 1971 eighth solo studio album by Dolly Parton. The title song, which Parton has described as her favourite of all the songs she's ever written, deals with the poverty of her childhood. It reached #4 on the U.S. country singles charts.
Over the years, Parton would re-record a number of the songs from the album. She redid "Traveling Man" (not to be confused with the Ricky Nelson song of the same name), a song that involved an unusual love triangle between a travelling salesman, a woman, and her mother, for inclusion on her 1973 album Bubbling Over. She would also re-record her composition "My Blue Tears", an "old-timey" folk-influenced song, with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt in the mid-1970s, for an ill-fated Trio album project. (The recording would eventually surface on Ronstadt's 1982 album Get Closer). Parton cut the song for a third time in 2001, including it on her Little Sparrow album. "Early Morning Breeze" later appeared on her 1974 Jolene album.
"A Better Place to Live" was a song very much of its time, dealing with living in a utopian, peaceful world where people love one another, and was very much in the same vein as Jackie DeShannon's recent hit "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" (which Parton herself would later cover in 1993).
In 2001, the album was released on CD in 2001 as Joshua & Coat Of Many Colors, attached to Joshua on one disc.[7]
In 2003, the album was ranked number 299 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.[8] It subsequently made Time Magazine's 100 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2006.
A re-issue released in 2007, in conjunction with Parton's 2007 European Tour, featured previously unreleased songs.
In 2010, Sony Music reissued the 2007 CD Coat of Many Colors in a triple-feature CD set with My Tennessee Mountain Home and Jolene.
Contents |
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Coat of Many Colors" | Dolly Parton | 3:05 |
| 2. | "Traveling Man" | Dolly Parton | 2:40 |
| 3. | "My Blue Tears" | Dolly Parton | 2:16 |
| 4. | "If I Lost My Mind" | Porter Wagoner | 2:29 |
| 5. | "The Mystery of the Mystery" | Porter Wagoner | 2:28 |
| 6. | "She Never Met a Man (She Didn't Like)" | Dolly Parton | 2:41 |
| 7. | "Early Morning Breeze" | Dolly Parton | 2:54 |
| 8. | "The Way I See You" | Porter Wagoner | 2:46 |
| 9. | "Here I Am" | Dolly Parton | 3:19 |
| 10. | "A Better Place to Live" | Dolly Parton | 2:39 |
| 2007 CD Reissue | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length | ||||||
| 11. | "My Heart Started Breaking" | Dolly Parton | 3:02 | ||||||
| 12. | "Just as Good as Gone" | Dolly Parton | 2:28 | ||||||
| 13. | "The Tender Touch of Love" | Porter Wagoner | 2:26 | ||||||
| 14. | "My Blue Tears" (Acoustic Demo) | Dolly Parton | 2:24 | ||||||