DOLLY PARTON

Here's a joke that was all the rage with 10-, 11-, and 12-year-olds back in the late '70s:

What do you call the sweat between DOLLY PARTON's breasts?

(beat)

Mountain Dew.

I'm telling you, back in the day, that killed. (Also: the one that starts, "So Jesus was being crucified at the top of this big hill" and ends, "Peter, I can see your house from here!" Classic.) (And: a racist joke involving the shoplifting of "nacho cheese." In retrospect: not-so-classic.)

Anyway... Dolly Parton -- like KENNY ROGERS -- took a pretty fruitful detour into the pop mainstream around the same time that those jokes were making the rounds on elementary-school playgrounds from Nashville to New Hampshire; Memphis to Montana. (I must say, though, that it was the incantatory ode "Jolene" that had me spellbound this time through.)

[MP3] "Islands in the Stream" [w/KENNY ROGERS] [1983]

[MP3] "9 to 5" [1980]

[MP3] "Here You Come Again" [1977]

[MP3] "I Will Always Love You" [1974]

[MP3] "Jolene" [1971]