The
Blue Smoke comes rolling across the Smoky Mountains, the area of Tennessee that
Dolly Parton calls home. She named her 42nd studio album after that smoke -- she also used it for the name of her 2014 tour of Australia and New Zealand, where this 2014 album first appeared (it saw stateside release later in the summer) -- and while it's not autobiographical, it certainly adds up to a tidy portrait of
Parton in 2014. Unlike some of her new millennial albums,
Blue Smoke doesn't specialize in one specific sound -- it is neither a bluegrass nor pop record but rather splits the difference, touching upon each sound, along with threading in other signatures like superstar duets with old friends (
Kenny Rogers and
Willie Nelson both show up, singing songs that appear on their own 2013 albums) and splashy, silly covers of recent pop hits (this time, it's a version of
Bon Jovi's "Lay Your Hands on Me"). Compared to 2011's
Better Day, the album this follows, this is heavier on covers -- in addition to the
Bon Jovi hit and
Rogers' commissioned nostalgia, there's the traditional "Banks of the Ohio" and a bluegrass take on
Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice" -- but
Blue Smoke is anchored on
Parton's originals, which run the gamut from the steady-rolling old-timey title track through the super-slick pop "Home" to "Lover du Jour," a clever spin on
Guy Clark's "Texas Cooking." Perhaps there are no permanent additions to her canon here, but the remarkable thing is how satisfying an album this is: it sounds good and the songs are sturdy, proof that
Parton is far from resting on her laurels.