9 To 5 And Odd Jobs (Buddha, 1999)

Dolly Parton's search for crossover success finally came to fruition at the end of the decade with 1980's "9 To 5 And Odd Jobs." For the first time, a single release - the title track - hit the top of all three charts, driven in part by her delightful performance in the movie of the same name. There are some peculiar combinations here - "Hush-A-Bye Hard Times" opens with a quotation from Stephen Foster's "Hard Times" before kicking into a beat that synthesizes country and R&B, with vocal support throughout from bluegrass's Osborne Brothers, while the old folk song "House Of The Rising Sun" gets a pretty straight disco treatment, and Woody Guthrie's "Deportee" is turned into a pop ballad - but more often than not they work in the way they seem to have been meant to.