Beyoncé’s reinterpretation of “Jolene” praised by Dolly Parton

On March 29, Beyoncé released “Cowboy Carter,” the follow-up to 2022’s House-inspired album “Renaissance.” “Cowboy Carter” is believed to be the second part of a trilogy of albums. On the album, the artist rediscovers what’s now a rustic and western classic – Dolly Parton’s 1973 song “Jolene” depicts a girl begging her lover to depart him alone. Beyoncé’s version, nevertheless, is less pleading and more a blunt reminder of the “Daddy Lessons” she published in 2016’s Lemonade.

Parton herself appears several times on Beyoncé’s album, most notably within the voicemail-style interlude that introduces “Jolene.” Parton notes, “You know, that chick with the beautiful hair you are singing about jogged my memory of someone I knew, ‘except she’s got flaming locks of auburn hair, bless her heart.’ Different coloured hair, but every thing hurts the identical.”

As reported shortly after the album’s release, Parton signaled her support Beyoncé’s version of her song, tweeting/X a photograph that reads: “Wow, I just heard Jolene. Beyoncé is giving this girl trouble and she deserves it!!!” The post is captioned with a heart emoji and “signed” Dolly P, as Parton’s interlude was titled.

Parkwood Entertainment, a production, entertainment company and record label founded by Beyoncé in 2010, – wrote within the press release that the album is concerning the genre. In particular, the album is predicated on the concept that the genre doesn’t really exist music historians have clearly noticed this. Beyoncé herself expanded on this in the discharge.

“The joy of making music is that there are no rules,” Beyoncé said. “The more I see the world evolving, the more I feel a deeper connection to purity. With artificial intelligence, filters and digital programming, I wanted to go back to real instruments and I used very old ones.”

Finally, Beyoncé briefly described her creative process in creating the album. “My process is that I usually have to experiment,” Beyoncé said. “I like to be open and have the freedom to bring out all the aspects of the things I love, so I worked on a lot of songs. I probably recorded 100 songs. Once I do this, I am able to put the puzzle together and realize the coherence and common themes, and then create a solid body of work.”

Beyoncé’s album was likely born after her performance of “Daddy Lessons” on the 2016 Country Music Awards, which Beyoncé mentioned in an Instagram post before the album’s release.

“This album took over five years to create,” Beyoncé wrote. “It was born out of an experience I had many years ago where I didn’t feel welcome… and it was very clear that I wasn’t.”

Beyoncé continued: “The criticism I faced when I first encountered this genre forced me to overcome the limitations that were placed on me. Act II is the result of challenging ourselves and taking the time to bend and blend genres to create this work.”

As also reported by fans of black country music he felt the identical twinges navigating the now whitewashed country music genre.

Holly G., founder of the Black Opry, a community of Black Country and Americana artists and fans, and currently an emerging record labeltold the web site that she thinks Beyoncé’s fans have a likelihood to each immerse themselves within the music and help black country artists just like the ones Beyoncé highlighted on her album.

“I think Beyoncé fans have a huge opportunity here to really come in and help grow some of these artists,” Holly said. “I totally understand why Black people wouldn’t want to give country music a chance considering the way the industry has treated them, but I think they would really like this music.”