That way, the hipster country fans who have no qualms about revering the likes of Hank Williams or Patsy Cline or Johnny Cash could ignore the "bad" Dolly and embrace the pure one, with no fear of ridicule from their peers. And the longtime, hardcore but perhaps less discriminating country fans those hipsters look down on -- the ones who might wear their hair a little too high or snap their gum a little too loud, the ones who at one time might have lovingly made quilts or collages for the likes of Randy Travis -- could have the other Dolly, the tacky one, the one who doesn't have a problem hopping into bed with a schmaltzy pop arrangement now and then. The purists would have their patron saint, the so-called rubes would have their good-time gal and everyone would be happy.

But there's only one Dolly Parton, and she's not divisible. You can pick and choose your favorite songs from the broad range of her music, but denying the pop Dolly Parton in favor of the homespun one only diminishes her mystery -- and denigrates her greatness. It would be handy if we could create our own versions of the artists we most adore -- take the "Sun Sessions"-era Elvis and skip the fat one, for example. But the artists we love best almost always confound us. As for Parton: She's a genuine rhinestone diamond.

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There are times when "My Life and Other Unfinished Business" almost reads like a parody of rags-to-riches biographies -- the part, for instance, where Parton recollects how she and her playmates would tie strings to June bugs and fly them around like toys. But Parton's childhood poverty informs much of her adult work, not so much because all of her songs are about being poor (most of them are not), but because she seems to be possessed of a certain brand of compassion that often comes from having to do without. Part of her sensibility, of course, comes from the type of music she grew up with: church music as well as ballads that had made their way across an ocean decades before she was born, songs about love and death and other mysteries, pieces of music that have been subtly changed over the years as they've been handed down.

Parton developed a love, and a knack, for songs that told stories: Songs that spoke of dutiful restraint between potential lovers ("Chas," off the superb and, unfortunately, out-of-print 1970 LP "The Fairest of Them All"), of man-stealing temptresses ("Jolene"), of women who are weary from making mistakes in love but always willing to try again ("The Bargain Store") and of forbidden love that lasts till the grave ("Silver Dagger"). Her songs, even many of the blatantly pop-country ones, are pure Appalachia in spirit, retooled for the late 20th century; they often have a haunting quality that's just a few quiet footsteps away from the ancient tales of girls dying on the moor with their babes in their arms or dead lovers who haunt the living.

As a girl, Parton had always loved singing, and with the help and encouragement of her uncle, Bill Owens, she landed a spot on a Knoxville, Tenn., television show at the age of 10. She made her first appearance at the Grand Ole Opry at 13. Immediately after graduating from high school, in 1964, she moved to Nashville, intent on becoming a country star; within her first few days there, she met her husband, Carl Dean, a shy fellow who to this day prefers to stay out of the spotlight that seems to hover almost perpetually over his wife.

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