Dolly Parton Salutes Rock and Roll

Dolly Parton’s first-ever rock album, “Rockstar,” released in November, opens with a declaration. “I’m gonna be in rock and roll whether you two like it or not!” an imagined teen-age Parton hollers at her parents, who are complaining about the “noise” that she makes when shredding guitar. It is rock’s primal scene of intergenerational conflict: kids in bedrooms playing music that their parents just don’t understand. In music videos like Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and Michael Jackson’s “Black or White,” the rebel-heroes play so loud that they catapult their fathers out of their houses. But Parton feminizes the tale, and uses it to frame an album that realigns rock with women. It isn’t necessary to kill the father, she suggests, when you can get by with a little help from your girlfriends.