Less an album, more an aural family scrapbook, Smoky Mountain DNA attempts to catalogue five generations of the Owens-Parton clan via a hefty 37-track collection of mostly duets between Dolly and her extended family on both sides, past and present. Combining archival, overdubs and new recordings, it takes us on a lengthy journey that begins in 1964 with Parton’s fiddle-playing grandfather, the Rev Jake Owens, on I Live in Glory, and ends with a Disney-lite ballad, Randy Floyd, written and sung by Parton and her teenage great-niece Merin Seaver.
At first it’s impossible not to be charmed, as our celebrated tour guide – one of 12 siblings – kicks things off with a spoken-word invitation. But as with any family, and certainly any record of this size, there is a vast spectrum of appeal. Parton’s 1970s duet with her aunt Dorothy Jo Owens on the latter’s Runaway Girl, or the newly gospel-backed Singing His Praise/ Daddy Was an Old Time Preacher Man medley, sung in 2011 alongside her uncles Bill and Louis Owens, offer a window into the musical heritage that made the star. However, by the time we reach today’s series of young hopefuls and vaguely musical cousins, it all just feels like an exercise in well-meaning nepotism.
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