In celebration of 9 to 5: The Musical's Broadway debut, RCA/Legacy has reissued Parton's 1980 album with a trio of bonus tracks. Building on the 1977 pop breakthrough, "

," 9 to 5 (as a film, album and single) cemented Parton's draw beyond her core country audience. She'd released

earlier in the year, and its orchestrated AOL covers freed her to indulge more country sounds here. The 9 to 5 album topped the country chart and the title single topped the country, pop and AC charts. The album's second single, a light-pop cover of the First Edition's "

" (originally sung by future duet partner Kenny Rogers) also topped the country chart, and a disco cover of "The House of the Rising Sun" made the top twenty.

The hit singles provide a fare representation of the album's variety. Parton's originals include the hopeful, country gospel "Hush-A-Bye Hard Times," the unapologetic portrait "Working Girl," and the homespun values of "Poor Folks Town." The covers are more diverse, including a delicate reading of Woody Guthrie's "Deportee" and a solemn take on Merle Travis' "Dark as a Dungeon." Less successful is the pedestrian Nashville backing given to Mel Tillis' "Detroit City" and Mike Post's badly aging arrangement of "Sing for the Common Man." Yet even when backed by hackneyed keyboards, liquid guitars and by-the-numbers strings, Parton's voice still shines.

The struggles and successes of working people provide the album a theme, but the album never musters the artistic force of

,

or

. Parton's in excellent voice throughout, but her bid for broader commercial success leaves several tracks uncomfortably laden with pop clichés. Legacy's 2009 reissue adds a previously unreleased session cover of Sly and the Family Stone's "

," a beat-heavy 2008 house remix of "9 to 5," and a lead vocal-free remix of "9 to 5" that puts you in Dolly's rhinestone-studded high-heeled shoes. Bonuses aside, it's the album's originals and selected covers that make this an essential entry in Parton's catalog. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

I had purshed Dolly's 9-5 and Odd Jobs new in album form. While I still have the original album I no longer have a means to listen to it, having converted many of my albums to digial. I was so happy to find it and be able to buy it in it's CD form. It was like inviteing in an old friend that you had not seen in years. I am happy to have this in my CD collection. If you are a Dolly fan, this is a must have for your collection.

Jay

The release of Dolly's "9 to 5 and Odd Jobs" CD this year is to coincide with the debut of Dolly's "9 to 5-The Broadway Musical", which opens in New York on April 30th, 2009. She also wrote all the music for the musical and is one of its producers.

This marks the third time Dolly's 1980 masterpiece has been released on CD. It originally came out on CD in the mid to late '90s, but RCA did a bad job in its release-only 8 tracks were included. Then in 1999 Buddha Records, in conjunction with RCA, released the album again with beautiful repackaging and all 10 tracks were included with renewed audio. Now comes this wonderful CD edition with bonus tracks.

"9 to 5 and Odd Jobs" has gone on to be one of Dolly Parton's most successful albums in her career. It went all the way to #1 on the country charts, where it stayed for a whopping 10 weeks (her longest stay there), garnered Dolly 2 Grammy wins, one for Best Country Song and one for Best Country Vocal Performance, both for the song "9 to 5", and the album went Gold selling 500,000 copies. If RCA would do some research on the sales of this album in 2009, the accumlated sales would bring it to over a million copies. Since Dolly is no longer with RCA the label refuses to do an accounting of her old albums, which is not only an insult to us Dolly fans, but to Miss Parton herself, who is one of the greatest entertainers and singers in the world.

The album title song went to number one on the country charts and became Dolly's first #1 pop song and her second million selling single, after "Here You Come Again". "9 to 5" also is one of those rare songs in which a female country act had the song go to the top of both the country and pop charts. The last song to do this prior to "9 to 5" was "Harper Valley PTA" back in 1968. "9 to 5" also went on to beat Tammy Wynette's classic "Stand By Your Man", in terms of sales for a single.

"9 to 5 and Odd Jobs" also produced another #1 country hit, Kenny Roger's and The First Edition's "But You Know I love You". The CD has many other covers, among the best is "Detroit City", which Dolly makes her own. "The House of the Rising Sun" is also performed here and Dolly sounds impeccable on the vocal.

Mike Post, a big Hollywood record producer who Dolly met on the "Merv Griffin Show" in the late '70s, produced the bulk of the CD's songs, but it was Dollys long-time friend and band leader Gregg Perry who produced the "9 to 5" single. Mike Post would also go on to produce Dolly's "Rhinestone" album in 1984.

An old Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton song also surfaces here, "Poor Folks Town", which Dolly wrote, and was included on the duos "Together Always" album in 1972.

The crowning jewel in this particular CD collection are 3 bonus tracks, including a karaoke version of "9 to 5", a dance mix version of the same song, and the previous unreleased track "Everyday People", which was a pop hit in the late '60s. "Everday People" is also one of Dolly's best vocal performances ever. Even if you have the Buddha release of this CD pick up this collection, simply to have the bonuses. No Dolly collection is complete without it.

Buddah is to be applauded for finally (if somewhat slowly) reissuing long out of print Dolly Parton albums with a remastered sound. It is especially gratifying that they are giving equal attention to Parton's more creative country period, and not just limiting it to her more pop oriented material. The pattern seems to be reissue one country album and one pop album simultaneously.

While this album is better than average for her pop period, it decidedly takes a back seat to the magnificent "Coat of Many Colors" album that was reissued along with "9 to 5." There really is no comparing the two albums. "Coat" is a masterpiece of early 70's country, and a sad reminder of how Nashville no longer cares about its roots. By contrast, this album is pleasant and enjoyable, but hardly in the same league as the bulk of Parton's work before about 1977.

2 1/2 stars.

This is almost a concept album, based around the problems of working people. It's difficult to see where But you know I love you (a cover of a song that was originally a hit for Kenny Rogers and the first edition) fits the concept, so that's why I say almost.

The album yielded two number one country hits - 9 to 5 and But you know I love you - with 9 to 5 giving Dolly her first (and only solo) American number one pop hit. Sadly, it barely scraped into the top 50 in Britain. Her dramatic cover of House of the rising sun made the country top 20, although this particular track has no country credentials whatsoever - it is brilliant, but it is pure pop.

Country fans will particularly enjoy Detroit city and Deportee. Detroit city began life as a country hit for Bobby Bare and became an international pop hit for Tom Jones. Deportee is a cover of a Woody Guthrie song about a plane crash.

Although more pop than country, I particularly enjoy Hash a bye hard times and Sing for the common man. Actually, it's all good stuff here as far as I'm concerned, but you need to like both pop and country to fully appreciate this album.

Among Dolly's Hollywood albums, Here you come again is my favorite, but this one and Real love are both very close behind.