The Grass Is Blue is the thirty-seventh solo studio album by American singer-songwriter Dolly Parton. It was released on October 26, 1999, by Sugar Hill and Blue Eye Records. The album won a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album and "Travelin' Prayer" was nominated for Best Female Country Vocal Performance.
Background
Parton found herself without a record label for the second time in a year when Decca Records closed its Nashville office in early 1999, just months after the release of Hungry Again. Throughout the 1990s, she had been losing ground with country radio, though her album sales had remained strong for much of that time. The idea for the project was brought to Parton's attention one night in July 1999 when she was having dinner with Steve Buckingham. He mentioned to her that bluegrass fans, when asked which artist they would most like to make a bluegrass album, overwhelmingly cited her. Parton told Billboard, "We were both shocked, but then I thought, since I manage myself now and have my own label and can do what I want, why not do it?" By the end of August 1999, Parton had recorded the album in Nashville with Buckingham producing and top musicians such as Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, Stuart Duncan, Alison Krauss, and Rhonda Vincent accompanying. Speaking about the song selection, Parton said, "I've always loved bluegrass, having grown up in and around mountain music and bluegrass, so I chose some songs I've been singing all my life." Parton said of the recording process, "It went really fast because these are the world's best bluegrass pickers and singers, who've been doing these songs forever!"
Content
The album includes a mixture of Parton originals and folk and bluegrass standards, as well as a Billy Joel cover. "Silver Dagger", a late nineteenth century ballad, had been popularized by Joan Baez during the early 1960s. Parton had originally written "Steady as the Rain" for her younger sister Stella Parton, who had a top 40 country hit with the song in 1979. "Will He Be Waiting for Me" is an updated version of a song which Parton originally recorded for her 1972 album, Touch Your Woman. The album also includes a cover of the Blackfoot song "Train, Train".The Grass Is Blue is the thirty-seventh solo studio album by American singer-songwriter Dolly Parton. It was released on October 26, 1999, by Sugar Hill and Blue Eye Records. The album won a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album and "Travelin' Prayer" was nominated for Best Female Country Vocal Performance.
Background
Parton found herself without a record label for the second time in a year when Decca Records closed its Nashville office in early 1999, just months after the release of Hungry Again. Throughout the 1990s, she had been losing ground with country radio, though her album sales had remained strong for much of that time. The idea for the project was brought to Parton's attention one night in July 1999 when she was having dinner with Steve Buckingham. He mentioned to her that bluegrass fans, when asked which artist they would most like to make a bluegrass album, overwhelmingly cited her. Parton told Billboard, "We were both shocked, but then I thought, since I manage myself now and have my own label and can do what I want, why not do it?" By the end of August 1999, Parton had recorded the album in Nashville with Buckingham producing and top musicians such as Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, Stuart Duncan, Alison Krauss, and Rhonda Vincent accompanying. Speaking about the song selection, Parton said, "I've always loved bluegrass, having grown up in and around mountain music and bluegrass, so I chose some songs I've been singing all my life." Parton said of the recording process, "It went really fast because these are the world's best bluegrass pickers and singers, who've been doing these songs forever!"
Content
The album includes a mixture of Parton originals and folk and bluegrass standards, as well as a Billy Joel cover. "Silver Dagger", a late nineteenth century ballad, had been popularized by Joan Baez during the early 1960s. Parton had originally written "Steady as the Rain" for her younger sister Stella Parton, who had a top 40 country hit with the song in 1979. "Will He Be Waiting for Me" is an updated version of a song which Parton originally recorded for her 1972 album, Touch Your Woman. The album also includes a cover of the Blackfoot song "Train, Train".false2024-02-27 19:02:34The Grass Is Blue1019991999-10-261999-10-2645BluegrassCountry11130222519469df2807e-e1b8-4056-9c90-7cc84442d2641d543e07-d0d2-4834-a8db-d65c50c2a8563f57d8ab-12e1-374f-83d7-df4f202893df/media/data/media5/Music/Dolly Parton/The Grass Is Blue (1999)/folder.jpgDolly PartonAlbumArtist/config/metadata/People/D/Dolly Parton/folder.jpgDolly PartonArtist/config/metadata/People/D/Dolly Parton/folder.jpgDolly PartonDolly PartonDolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. She is known for her decades-long career in country music. After achieving success as a songwriter for others, Parton made her album debut in 1967 with Hello, I'm Dolly, which led to success during the remainder of the 1960s (both as a solo artist and with a series of duet albums with Porter Wagoner), before her sales and chart peak came during the 1970s and continued into the 1980s. Some of Parton's albums in the 1990s did not sell as well, but she achieved commercial success again in the new millennium and has released albums on various independent labels since 2000, including her own label, Dolly Records.
With a career spanning over fifty years, Parton has been described as a "country music legend" and has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling artists of all time. Parton's music includes Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)-certified gold, platinum and multi-platinum awards. She has had 25 singles reach no. 1 on the Billboard country music charts, a record for a female artist (tied with Reba McEntire). She has 44 career Top 10 country albums, a record for any artist, and she has 110 career-charted singles over the past 40 years. She has composed over 3,000 songs, including "I Will Always Love You" (a two-time U.S. country chart-topper, and an international hit for Whitney Houston), "Jolene", "Coat of Many Colors", and "9 to 5". As an actress, she has starred in films including 9 to 5 (1980) and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), for which she earned Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress, and Rhinestone (1984), Steel Magnolias (1989), Straight Talk (1992) and Joyful Noise (2012).
She has received 11 Grammy Awards out of 50 nominations, including the Lifetime Achievement Award; ten Country Music Association Awards, including Entertainer of the Year and is one of only seven female artists to win the Country Music Association's Entertainer of the Year Award; five Academy of Country Music Awards, also including Entertainer of the Year; four People's Choice Awards; and three American Music Awards. She is also in a select group to have received at least one nomination from the Academy Awards, Grammy Awards, Tony Awards, and Emmy Awards. In 1999, Parton was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. In 2005, she received the National Medal of Arts and in 2022, she was nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a nomination she had initially declined but ultimately accepted, and was subsequently inducted.
Outside of her work in the music industry, she also co-owns The Dollywood Company, which manages a number of entertainment venues including the Dollywood theme park, the Splash Country water park, and a number of dinner theatre venues such as The Dolly Parton Stampede and Pirates Voyage. She has founded a number of charitable and philanthropic organizations, chief among them is the Dollywood Foundation, which manages a number of projects to bring education and poverty relief to East Tennessee where she grew up.