Dolly Parton is brightening up our year with the announcement of her first holiday album in 30 years, A Holly Dolly Christmas.
The country icon enlisted a star-studded group of artists to join her on the record including her goddaughter Miley Cyrus, Willie Nelson, Billy Ray Cyrus, Michael Bublé, Jimmy Fallon and her brother Randy Parton and her niece Heidi Parton.
Parton previously shared with 650 AM WSM radio station, “I’m doing a duet with Michael Bublé, a duet with Billy Ray Cyrus, a duet with Jimmy Fallon, a duet with Miley [Cyrus], a duet with my brother Randy, and my niece Heidi is singing on that with us also.”
The Kent Wells-produced 12-track album is finished and is slated for release on Oct. 2 via Butterfly Records in partnership with 12Tone Music Group. The first single from the album will be “Cuddle Up, Cozy Down Christmas” with Bublé.
“I have just finished a Christmas album called A Holly Dolly Christmas, and it’s coming out in the fall,’ Parton teased.
The star also revealed the track list for the album which includes some Christmas classics like “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” “Holly Jolly Christmas,” “Mary, Did You Know?” and more. You can see the full track list below.
She named the album after her love for the Burl Ives song “A Holly Jolly Christmas.”
“I thought, ‘I think I’ll call it A Holly Dolly Christmas because I love the song “A Holly Jolly Christmas” with Burl Ives. He used to be on all of my Christmas specials all through the years. I think of him as Mr. Christmas. I thought, ‘Why don’t do I call it something cute and clever, like that or Deck the Halls with Boughs of Dolly, something corny like that,” Parton told Billboard.
The album was recorded during quarantine with all proper social distancing and CDC guidelines in effect.
“We were working in our little circle with our masks and with our gloves and we had our engineer and we just had the very few people that we had to have when we were in there when I was singing,” she explained. “They had done some of the tracks before the pandemic, but then we went in and started doing our vocals. We’ve been very smart, very careful, because we’re trying to protect ourselves and I’m an older person. I’m not out to get it if I don’t [have] to, I’m hoping I can outrun all that. We’ve been all very, very smart, but it didn’t slow us up.”
Parton has released holiday songs in the past including a duets album with Kenny Rogers in 1984 titled Once Upon A Christmas, Her Home for Christmas album in 1990 and a single entitled “Comin’ Home For Christmas” in 2009.
She also starred in several Christmas films films including A Smoky Mountain Christmas in 1986, Unlikely Angel in 1996 and A Country Christmas Story in 2013 and also in her 2016 TV series Dolly Parton’s Christmas of Many Colours: Circle of Love.
Last year, Dolly also starred in holiday-themed TV movie, Christmas at Dollywood.
Holly Dolly Christmas Track listing
1. Holly Jolly Christmas
2. Christmas Is (feat. Miley Cyrus)
3. Cuddle Up, Cozy Down Christmas (feat. Michael Bublé)
4. Christmas On The Square
5. Circle Of Love
6. All I Want For Christmas Is You (feat. Jimmy Fallon)
7. Comin’ Home For Christmas
8. Christmas Where We Are (feat. Billy Ray Cyrus)
9. Pretty Paper (feat. Willie Nelson)
10. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
11. You Are My Christmas (feat. Randy Parton)
12. Mary, Did You Know?
