Dolly Parton says that she's "looking forward" to recording her first ever rock album, and she'd like former Led Zeppelin duo Robert Plant and Jimmy Page to join her on a planned re-recording of Stairway To Heaven, a song she originally covered in a bluegrass style on her 2002 album Halos & Horns.
Back in February, reacting to her nomination for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, Parton teased the prospect of making a rock n' roll record if she was inducted.
"I’m not expecting that I’ll get in," she told Billboard. "But if I do, I’ll immediately, next year, have to put out a great rock ’n’ roll album – which I’ve wanted to do for years, like a Linda Ronstadt or Heart kind of thing. So this may have been just a God-wink for me to go ahead and do that."
Pixies/Nirvana/Page & Plant producer Steve Albini subsequently offered his services to record the album.
In May, it was revealed that the country music queen would indeed be inducted, even though she had attempted to reject the nomination after some mild controversy over whether she could genuinely be considered a 'rock n' roll' artist.
Which means that the plan to make a Dolly Rocks album is back on the table, Parton says in a new interview with Pollstar.
In response to a query about whether she is, in fact, working upon said album, Parton says, "Well, I am."
"When I got nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, I thought, Well, no better time to do it. I had always wanted to do it. My husband is a big hard rock ’n’ roll fan, and for years I thought, One of these days I’d like to do an album mainly just for him, just to kind of do it. When I got nominated, I thought, Why not just go ahead and do it while the iron’s hot? Maybe have some of the greats, the legends of rock ‘n’ roll sing along with me.”
Following on from this, the singer revealed that she is intending to record a more faithful cover of Stairway To Heaven, and that she hopes to reunite Robert Plant and Jimmy Page on her new take on the Led Zeppelin IV classic.
"I’m trying to see if Robert Plant might sing on it," she says. "Maybe Jimmy Page might do the pick-up part on it. I’m looking forward to dragging in some of the great classic people, girls and boys, to sing on some of the songs. I’m not far enough along to discuss who and what, but I am going to do an album."
Read the full Pollstar interview here.
