Dolly Parton Fans ‘Resented’ the Cover of a Majorly Successful Album
When Dolly Parton released her album Here You Come Again, she felt an overwhelming sense of trepidation about how her fans would react. While she had already been working to cross over onto the pop charts, this album was clearly a jump. Many of her fans enjoyed the music on the album, but they still found problems with the cover.
Dolly Parton’s fans did not like the cover of one of her celebrated albums
When Parton released Here You Come Again, she was acutely aware that it might upset her country fans. She said that this was not her intention, but she wanted to continue progressing with her sound.
“I am thankful for everything good that has happened to me. I will never neglect or turn my back on any person who has ever helped me,” she said in the book Dolly by Alanna Nash, adding, “I will give my country fans what they want and what they need from me, but I have other fans that I must give what they want and what they need. And I must give myself what I want and what I need, because I have to live with me, and I have to know that I have done my best. That’s what I’m doing.”
Ultimately, the album was a hit with old and new fans alike. Her country fans had a problem with the album cover, though. On it, three images of Parton pose in jeans and a red top. Some fans felt the pictures were too close to disco and represented an unwelcome change in Parton.
“I don’t think they’re resentful of her switching over as much as they are of the pictures on that album,” a studio musician said. “And people resented her standin’ in front of that muscle man [Arnold Schwarzenegger] in Rolling Stone. They’re wondering if the sweet disposition and the clean mouth that she’s maintained all up to this point will stay the same. They’re worried that she’s not a clean-minded person anymore.”
Dolly Parton fans did not love the album she released before ‘Here You Come Again’
The album that Parton released before Here You Come Again, New Harvest … First Gathering was more of a disappointment to her Nashville fans. The album was her first attempt to hit the pop charts, and people felt she was turning her back on country music.
“A lot of people don’t want to accept it. They think, ‘She’s just disappointed us.’ Especially people who were close to her,” Parton’s seamstress, Judy Hunt, explained. “Then, a lot of other people have accepted it. I was very skeptical that she’d make it at first. I thought, ‘Gosh, she’s too country.’ But she’s comin’ right along.”
She said she worried about the way fans would react to her crossover music
While Parton knew that finding a broader audience was good for her career, she worried about the way her loyal fans would take it. She insisted that she didn’t stray too far from her roots with her new sound.
“I knew [‘Here You Come Again’] was the single before it was even mixed, but it was a little bit scary for Dolly to make a pop record,” producer Gary Klein said. “She was afraid her fans would say, ‘Oh, Dolly’s selling out.’ She did ask to have pedal steel guitar added to the record, so I added a few licks. But I pointed out to her that records like Engelbert Humperdinck’s ‘After the Lovin’’ make the country charts now. People don’t realize how broad country is.”
Despite her concerns, the album hit No. 1 on the country charts.
