Author Says She’s Got A Never-Before-Heard Dolly Parton Album

Dolly Parton apparently loved a book that she read so much that she did what Dolly Parton does — She wrote an entire album about it.

Dolly Parton Made a 15-Song Album Nobody Has Heard Yet

Kentucky author Kim Michele Richardson has revealed that Parton wrote and recorded 15 original songs that were inspired by Richardson’s bestselling novel The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek.

The songs have never been publicly released, but that might soon change.

Read More: Dolly Parton’s Faith Carried Her to the End – Then She Asked Her Sister for One Thing

Richardson recently revealed the existence of the album following Parton’s death, and she’s now working on plans to eventually share the music with the public.

Kim Richardson Reveals The Unexpected Package She Got From Dolly Parton

“I was stunned,” Richardson said when she received the unexpected gift from Dolly.

And it wasn’t just a couple of songs, which would have been amazing as well, it was a complete 15-song album, all written and recorded by Parton after she read Richardson’s 2019 novel.

Richardson said Parton gave her the recordings with no strings attached.

How Does Dolly Parton Sound On Unreleased Album Inspired By The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek?

“Dolly’s voice is very strong in there,” Richardson said. “At times, it sounds like a very young Dolly, and you’re going to laugh, you’re going to cry … some of them will become anthems, I feel.”

Think about that for a second. There is potentially an entire Dolly Parton album sitting somewhere right now that the public has never heard.

And the reason Dolly made it is almost as good as the story itself.

Dolly Parton Fell in Love With The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is set in Kentucky and tells the story of a packhorse librarian who travels through Appalachia delivering books to people who otherwise wouldn’t have access to them.

The story was inspired by the real-life Pack Horse Library Project, where women traveled through the Appalachian Mountains on horseback delivering books during the 1930s.

That’s pretty dang cool and apparently Parton was apparently a huge fan.

Richardson says Dolly even kept a copy of the book on her nightstand.

Read More: Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Has Now Gifted Over 200 Million Books to Kids

The more that you think about it, the more the connection makes a lot of sense considering Parton founded the Imagination Library, which provides free books to children, and the program has now given away more than 300 million books.

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek Album Was a Gift From Dolly Parton

Richardson says she received the recordings from Dolly about four years ago.

Parton didn’t ask for anything in return. She simply gave Richardson permission to use the songs however she wanted. Richardson has kept them preserved ever since.

It’s crazy that she has held onto them in secrecy since 2022. I would have blasted those all over the internet right away.

We’ve heard thousands of Parton’s songs over the course of her career. We’ve heard the hits, the deep cuts, the collaborations and plenty of songs that never became singles.

But these 15 songs are different.

The good news is that Richardson says these songs aren’t necessarily going to stay hidden forever.

She said plans were already being worked on to make the music available to the public before Parton died. “We’re working on things now,” Richardson said.

So this could eventually become one of the most unusual posthumous Parton releases ever.

It’s not an old album pulled out of a record company’s vault. Not a collection assembled from leftover recordings… a completely unreleased project that Parton created simply because a book inspired her.

Now we just have to wait for them to be released.