By MARIA SHERMAN, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Dolly Parton The musical story begins further back than one might imagine: in the British Isles of the 1600s. That’s where his ancestors came from, eventually landing in the howls of East Tennessee and its familiar mountain ranges, carrying their songs with them. A new album released Friday, “Smoky Mountain DNA: Family, Faith & Fables” credited to Dolly Parton and Family, explores the great legacy of the Partons and the Owens, her mother’s family, as she performs alongside five generations of members of his family.

“My grandfather used to say that when I became famous, he would say, ‘Well, she came out crying in the key of D,'” she told the Associated Press. “I think we all have.”

“Smoky Mountain DNA” was an inevitable labor of love, one that allowed Parton to learn more about her family lineage.

“We are a bit like the Carter family. We go back generations,” Parton said. (The Carters are widely considered the first family of country music.)

“I imagine this will be my favorite album,” Parton said. “It really involves, you know, my grandmothers and grandfathers and my aunts and uncles and all the people who went there and had the biggest influence on my life. The ones I remember from when I was little, and it continues even further from there.

Richie Owens – Parton’s cousin, whom she describes as “the family historian” – produced the “DNA of Smoky Mountain.” He says the family has been an archivist for a long time, but the idea of ​​keeping a record started around 2010 and 2011, delayed by a few deaths. Then, just before the pandemic, Parton approached Owens and said, “we need to get together and start trying to put all this information (and) material together,” he recalled. Because Owens had already been working on a family story, specifically related to his grandfather’s fiddle, they teamed up for what is now “Smoky Mountain DNA.”

For some of the new songs, Owens used digital technology – to which he compares AI assistance on the last new Beatles song, “Now and Then”, extract John Lennon’s voice from an old demo to a new composition – for “restoration work”.

“With the technology available, we were able to create wonderful, miraculous situations where we were able to create new pieces of music” from previous voice recordings of deceased family members, he says. This was about cleaning up the crackles and noises, not creating doctored recordings.

“I got very, very emotional many times when I was singing, especially with those who have already passed away and just remembering their voices and hearing them,” Parton said. “It kind of put me in a deeply emotional place, just like I had found them. So it was all very heartbreaking. But it was really amazing and very restorative. There were so many colors of emotions in it.

Parton and Owens began organizing the album by finding songs she had co-written with deceased family members — or those of deceased family members she had previously recorded. Others were hits and integral to the story of their legacy, and songs recorded with younger family members – including those born in the 21st century – included more of Parton’s co-writes, but with styles that felt true to each person.

It’s one of many reasons why the album, focused on country, folk, anthems and bluegrass, covers a wide range of genres, including a sort of soulful R&B performance (as on “Not Bad ” with Shelley Rená), swamp pop (“I Just Stopped” with Parton’s late uncle, Robert “John Henry” Owens), various rock genres (“Where Will We Live Tomorrow” with Rebecca Seaver and “Crazy in Love with You” with Richie Owens’ daughter Estelle).

The album also revisits Parton’s own career: There’s a delightful cover of “Puppy Love,” originally recorded when she was 13, now sung with some of her younger family members.

“Some of the little ones,” she says, “remind me so much of myself when I was young and playing guitar.”