Unlikely Angel: The Songs of Dolly Parton By Lydia Hamessley. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2020.

IF 0.2 1区艺术学 N/A MUSIC

Journal of the Society for American Music Pub Date : 2023-11-01 DOI:10.1017/S1752196323000366

Stephanie Vander Wel

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Abstract

Lydia Hamessley ’ s Unlikely Angel: The Songs of Dolly Parton is the first book-length study of Dolly Parton ’ s self-composed music, offering a nuanced musicological and historical account of how Parton ’ s songwriting techniques developed and contributed to her illustrious career. If any per-former has dazzled a diverse audience for over a half a century with her far-reaching music, it has been Parton. Yet at times, her bigger than life campy performance persona, built from the exaggerated tropes of sexuality and gender intersecting with regional and social class symbols, has over-shadowed her visibility as a prolific songwriter. Parton has proclaimed in countless interviews that there is more to her than her exterior embodiment of a poor white Appalachian girl ’ s idea of glam. Underneath this well-constructed “ cartoon ”— a word that Parton has used to describe her hyperfe-minine and hypersexual persona — lie her talents as a singer – songwriter (85). Unlikely Angel is thus a response to Parton ’ s primary understanding of her long-lasting career in country music. Hamessley, a self-described Dolly fan, interweaves her analytical narration of the artist ’ s songs and strategic career choices with Parton ’ s own voice (found in personal and published interviews), while taking the reader into the rarefied interiority of Parton ’ s creative compositional processes. The author per-spicaciously connects Parton ’ s songwriting approaches to her musical sensibility, shaped by growing up in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee, support for her LGBTQ+ audience, activism against poverty, and quest for commercial acclaim and artistic autonomy in a misogynistic country music industry and its youth-oriented music market. Unlikely Angel is an ambitious and unique book due to the many ways Hamessley re-contextualizes the various aspects of Parton ’ s persona and career in relation to her songwriting. The book begins its

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不可能的天使：Lydia Hamessley 著：《多莉-帕顿之歌》。乌尔班纳：伊利诺伊大学出版社，2020 年。

莉迪亚-哈梅斯利（Lydia Hamessley）的《不可能的天使》（Unlikely Angel：The Songs of Dolly Parton》是第一部研究多莉-帕顿自创音乐的长篇著作，从音乐学和历史学的角度细致入微地阐述了帕顿的歌曲创作技巧是如何发展并成就了她辉煌的事业。半个多世纪以来，如果说有哪位歌手以其影响深远的音乐征服了不同的听众，那非帕顿莫属。然而，有时候，她那夸张的性与性别、地域与社会阶层符号交织在一起的夸张表演形象，掩盖了她作为一名多产作曲家的知名度。帕顿曾在无数次采访中宣称，她的魅力远不止外表所体现的一个贫穷的阿巴拉契亚白人女孩的想法。在这个精心塑造的 "卡通形象 "之下--帕顿曾用这个词来形容她的超妩媚和超性感形象--隐藏着她作为歌手和作曲家的才华（85）。因此，《Unlikely Angel》是对帕顿长期从事乡村音乐事业的主要理解的回应。哈梅斯利自诩为多莉的粉丝，她将自己对这位艺术家的歌曲和战略性职业选择的分析叙述与帕顿自己的声音（在个人访谈和公开访谈中可以找到）交织在一起，同时将读者带入帕顿创作过程中罕见的内心世界。作者敏锐地将帕顿的歌曲创作方法与她在田纳西州烟雾山长大、支持 LGBTQ+ 受众、反对贫穷、在厌恶女性的乡村音乐产业及其面向年轻人的音乐市场中寻求商业赞誉和艺术自主性所形成的音乐感受力联系起来。Unlikely Angel》是一本雄心勃勃而又独具特色的著作，因为哈梅斯利通过多种方式将帕顿的个人形象和职业生涯的各个方面与她的歌曲创作联系在一起，重新构建了语境。本书从

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Journal of the Society for American Music MUSIC-

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0.90

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