Dolly Parton's White Limozeen

A discussion of White Limozeen, from Dolly’s self-fashioning to a rigorous critique of her genre.

White Limozeen (1989) was a commercial recovery after Dolly Parton's first major failure two years previously with the release of Rainbow. This book is a case study in how an album is sold and a persona constructed. The album had a complex relationship to the country music genre at a time when the genre was in the middle of major sonic and cultural shifts, and it represents how country music saw itself.

This question of identity was especially relevant since White Limozeen was produced by Ricky Skaggs, the bluegrass prodigy who was in the middle of his own genre-widening experiments. The album reflects dense and complex production, shredding ideas of purity, studio craft, slickness, and authenticity. In it, Dolly seems to be imagining the limits of her own personae—the country girl, the blonde burlesque, the pop legend, the gospel singer.

To study this album is to investigate Dolly’s calculated role in fashioning her image into the icon she is today.