When 28-year-old Dolly Parton summoned the courage to leave The Porter Wagoner Show in 1974, she knew she needed a dynamic solo album to pave the way. The No. 1 single "Jolene" was a fine place to start, with its instantly recognized guitar intro and its minor-key structure that suggested the murder ballads and wronged-woman folk songs of Parton's mountain heritage. But Dolly had bigger, mainstream success in mind, and used her difficult and prolonged parting with Wagoner as inspiration for "I Will Always Love You," a goose-bumpy consolation prize that must have broken Porter's old heart in two. While Parton would have other fine country moments before surrendering to the glitz and glamour of pop pursuit three years later, never again would her gossamer soprano sound as eerily timeless or innocent as it does on the bulk of these tracks. And although "I Will Always Love You" would become a blue-chip stock, with several other incarnations, including a caterwauled hit for Whitney Houston in 1992, Parton's version here--vulnerable yet resolute, and understated compared to future efforts--would represent her at her best, confessing to the tempo of tears.

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