NEW YORK – 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 ​​preserving a record started around 2010 and 2011, delayed by a few minutes. 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 story family. specifically linked to his grandfather’s fiddle, they came together for what is today “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. noise – this is not about creating falsified recordings.

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

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 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.”

“Smoky Mountain DNA” could only end with one song: “When It’s Family,” originally co-written by Parton and released as “Family” on her 1991 album “Eagle When She Flies.” It’s a moving song about acceptance, sung by Parton: “Some are preachers, some are gay / Some are drug addicts, drunks and wanderers / But none are turned away / When it’s family.” »

“I neither condemn nor approve of anything. I love and accept people where they are, for who they are,” she explains. “And I’m not judging because I’ve said it before, I have immediate family members, whether they’re trans, whether they’re gay, whether they’re drag queens or whatever. I mean, we have drunks, wanderers, drug addicts – that’s always the case when you have a family as big as ours. And you love them all.

So what about all the hardware that’s not included here? “I’m sure we’ll do compilation albums,” Parton says. “We’re also doing a documentary series, bringing all the music back to the old country with a lot of our relatives there still singing all those old songs that were brought here… It’s really moving.”

In the meantime, she is working on a musical based on her life, which is planned for release Broadway in 2026. Much like “Smoky Mountain DNA,” it’s an opportunity to reflect on his career, and perhaps even what his legacy will become in five more generations.

“I hope a lot of my songs last that long,” she says. “And I hope that I will be remembered as someone who I tried to do good in the world and I left, you know, some good things.