Heartsongs draws Dolly Parton back to the mountain music she grew up with in Sevierville, Tennessee, a decade before her full bluegrass turn on the Sugar Hill trilogy that began with The Grass Is Blue in 1999. The arrangements emphasize the acoustic, Appalachian roots underneath her country-pop catalog, with traditional instrumentation — fiddle, mandolin, banjo, dobro — replacing the Nashville-Sound production that had defined much of her work in the 1970s and 1980s. Parton's voice, always at home in the higher mountain registers, settles easily into the older material. The repertoire mixes traditional songs with her own writing in a traditional mode, including pieces that reach back to her childhood and family. The album functions as the bridge between her commercial peak and the bluegrass projects that would re-anchor her artistic identity in the late 1990s, a deliberate gesture toward where she came from.
Tracklist
- 1 Heartsong - Live 5:25
- 2 I’m Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes alt version 2:52
- 3 Mary Of The Wild Moor - Live 4:06
- 4 In the Pines alt version 2:42
- 5 My Blue Tears - Live 2:47
- 6 Applejack - Live 3:34
- 7 Coat Of Many Colors - Live 4:21
- 8 Smoky Mountain Memories - Live 4:11
- 9 Night Train To Memphis - Live 2:42
- 10 What a Friend We Have in Jesus alt version 2:37
- 11 Hold Fast To The Right - Live 2:32
- 12 Walter Henry Hagan - Live 3:40
- 13 Barbara Allen - Live 5:24
- 14 Brave Little Soldier - Live 3:54
- 15 To Daddy - Live 2:55
- 16 True Blue - Live 3:06
- 17 Longer Than Always - Live 2:59
- 18 Wayfaring Stranger alt version 3:09
- 19 My Tennessee Mountain Home - Live 3:22
- 20 Heartsong (Reprise) - Live 2:20
- 21 Cas Walker Theme - Live 0:58
- 22 Black Draught Theme - Live 1:24
- 23 PMS Blues - Live 5:36