By the early ‘70s, she was a bit closer to getting there, scoring her very first country hits and embarking on an increasing number of ventures without her erstwhile mentor, much to his chagrin. After spending her early career in the late ‘60s as a duet partner and variety show co-host of her increasingly-controlling mentor Porter Wagoner, Dolly began setting her eyes towards solo success. I’ve already talked about Dolly Parton’s early career in one of my earliest Cover Me Badd articles, the one for Whitney Houston’s cover of ‘I Will Always Love You’, so go check that out if you wanna know more.īut what’s important to this story is that ‘Jolene’ was released right around the time Dolly Parton was just beginning to make a name for herself as a country singer. So what’s the big deal about this cover anyway? Was this young, swanky new version alluring enough to outshine the older original version? Or did it leave audiences begging the Stripes not to take it on, even though they could? Let’s take a look. How else would this song have made it onto the radar of a snobby, cooler-than-cool garage rock revival band from the 2000s like the White Stripes? This indie rock duo released their version of ‘Jolene’ initially as a B-side on their 2000 single, ‘ Hello Operator’, but their cover has since spawned a life of its own, being recognized as one of the most ingenious and novel versions of the song, especially when they released a live version in 2004 after they’d established themselves in the mainstream. Released in 1974, it helped solidify Dolly Parton’s reputation, going from a struggling young artist trying to break free from a Svengali-like managerial relationship, into one of the most pre-eminent voices in country music.īut unlike most country hits, which generally tend to be relegated to the country music ecosystem, the influence of ‘Jolene’ stretched beyond musical barriers, going on to influence aspiring artists from multiple genres. That’s right, today, we’re talking about one of Dolly Parton’s most enduring hits, and just one of the most memorable country classics ever, to the point where it’s the song about marital jealousy and emotional infidelity-’Jolene’. Which is what makes today’s discussion especially interesting, because we’re gonna be tackling a masterpiece of country music today. But one thing that often seems lost in the discussion is her musical ability, which generally goes unremarked in these conversations. A lot of it is just her outsize public persona as a campy buxom older woman who is not shy about expressing herself, and her progressive views on things like LGBT rights certainly help.

These days, Ms Parton enjoys something of a reinvigorated reputation, being one of the few country stars that it’s considered cool to like, and probably the only old school country artist known widely amongst the Gen Z population. That’s right, today, we’re going back to the country music well and tackling an artist who I’ve well covered multiple times on this blog-the legendary Ms.

And to be fair, I’m not sure this song would immediately strike most people as a horror song, but I’d argue there’s a lot of potential to be found here, as I’ll illustrate below. It’s a tradition I accidentally broke last year when I did One Direction’s cover of ‘One Way or Another/Teenage Kicks’, but even then, I still think that song’s theme of crazed, violent stalkers still fit the bill somewhat, so I’m not entirely off-track here. And as per blog tradition whenever it’s October, I try to get into the Halloween spirit by picking a song with at least something related to horror, whether aesthetically or thematically. Welcome back to Cover Me Badd, where we look at good covers, bad covers and what makes them tick. “Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman / Giving all your love to just one man / You’ll have bad times, and he’ll have good times / Doin’ things that you don’t understand”

Jack white jolene