Excellent biography of Dolly Parton, highly recommended for serious music fans.

This is not your ordinary biography of a music legend. This book, by a musicologist, looks at Dolly Parton as the serious songwriter and musical genius that she is. It doesn't cover all the gossip and wild stories about Dolly's personal life. A small portion of the book covers her relationships with Carl Dean, Judy Ogle, and Porter Waggoner - but only as these relationships affected Dolly's songwriting career. Instead, this book takes a very deep dive into Dolly's Smoky Mountain musical roots and songwriting influences. If you care to, the author takes you verse by verse into many of Dolly's important songs, providing analysis while you listen to each song.

Dolly Parton cooperated with this book, providing the author with long answers to questions posed to her. Steve Buckingham, Dolly's longtime producer, also cooperated with the author.

I'm delighted to see a book devoted to taking a close look at Dolly Parton as the musical genius that she is.

Unlikely Angel by Lydia Hamessley is an excellent book for any Dolly Parton fan.

The author goes through Ms. Parton’s extensive list of songs that she has produced and written and talks about her inspiration and thoughts that helped create each masterpiece. As a fan, I knew about some things, however I did learn quite a bit more.

Very impressed.

5/5 stars

Thank you NetGalley and University of Illinois Press for this ARC and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR account immediately and will post it to my Amazon and B&N accounts upon publication.