Dolly Parton - Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, CA, 7-23-2011 | ALBUMS THAT SHOULD EXIST

 

Dolly Parton - Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, CA, 7-23-2011

Paul says: A couple of days ago as I write this, another musical great passed away. Dolly Parton died on August 25, 2026, at the age of 80. She was more than just a great country singer and songwriter; by all accounts she was a nice person who gave many millions to charitable causes. She will be missed.

After hearing she had died, I looked around to see what music I could post of hers that would be interesting. I found an ALD recording of this concert that apparently hasn't been shared much until now. ALD stands for "assistive learning device." By U.S. law, big concert venues must provide these devices for concert-goers who are hard of hearing. Sometimes, clever people manage to record the live signal going to these devices. This is one of those cases.

Typically, ALD recordings are excellent, very similar to soundboard recordings. However, one flaw is that they often don't have much of the audience cheering. That was very much the case for this one. In addition, when Parton spoke between songs, sometimes her voice was quite faint. So I ran every song through the MVSEP audio editing program. I separated out the crowd noise, and then drastically boosted it at the ends of songs. I also simply boosted the vocals of her banter, sometimes making adjustments line by line. I boosted those so much that it often resulted in a lot of hiss. So I then made more audio edits to get rid of the hiss.  

I had extra trouble with the last song. For some reason, bursts of static came through repeatedly. I used both the MVSEP and UVR5 programs to use different noise-cleaning tools. I'm glad to say that got rid of nearly all of the problem. But that's why that one song has "[Edit]" in its title.

This fixing of the songs took a lot of work, but it was my way of paying tribute to the great Dolly Parton. Hopefully, this now will be considered one of her best, and best sounding, concert bootlegs. The concert took place during her tour for her 2011 album "Better Day." A New York Times newspaper review of that album praised her "almost ageless" vocals, and you can hear that vocal quality in this concert too. That album was well received by critics, but only sold moderately in the U.S. However, it Britain, it became her highest charting album, reaching Number One on the country chart there, and in the Top Ten in the main pop chart.

This album is two hours and 17 minutes long. 

01 Light of a Clear Blue Morning 
02 Walking on Sunshine 
03 Better Get to Livin' 
04 talk 
05 Jolene 
06 talk
07 Rocky Top 
08 Mule Skinner Blues [Instrumental] 
09 talk 
10 Help 
11 Shine 
12 Stairway to Heaven 
13 talk
14 My Tennessee Mountain Home 
15 talk 
16 Precious Memories 
17 talk 
18 Coat of Many Colors 
19 talk
20 Smoky Mountain Memories 
21 talk 
22 Son of a Preacher Man 
23 talk 
24 Better Day
25 talk 
26 Together You and I 
27 talk 
28 Holding Everything 
29 talk
30 Rappin' Dolly 
31 talk 
32 He Will Take You Higher
33 talk 
34 He's Everything 
35 talk 
36 White Limozeen
37 talk
38 Best of Both Worlds 
39 talk
40 The Sacrifice 
41 talk
42 In the Meantime 
43 talk 
44 Little Sparrow 
45 River Deep, Mountain High 
46 talk 
47 Here You Come Again 
48 Islands in the Stream 
49 9 to 5 
50 talk 
51 I Will Always Love You 
52 Light of a Clear Blue Morning [Reprise] [Edit] 

(all tracks Dolly Parton)