Monday, July 5, 2010

Dolly Parton + Potential New Boyfriend = SOLID GOLD!

When I was a youngster with my age still in the single digits, I lived for Barbara Mandrell & The Mandrell Sisters (see my previous tribute), Janie Fricke (more on her later) and the legendary Dolly Parton.

My parents had a VCR when they were still pretty pricey, not to mention top-loading. The VHS video tapes were expensive too, and I had 2 of my own. These tapes had episodes of the Mandrell Sisters show and various other things I had recorded. Of course, they were recorded on EP mode, so I could get 6 hours per tape. If I wanted to tape over something, I had to carefully navigate around the bits I wanted to keep.

1983 was a particularly good year for music. Dolly released the #1 smash hit "Islands In The Stream," a duet with Kenny Rogers, written and produced by The Bee Gees. But her lesser known hit, "Potential New Boyfriend," is my favorite Parton song of all. It's pure '80s pop pleasure! Incidentally, PNB was written by Steve Kipner, who also wrote "Physical" for Olivia Newton-John, and, as I just discovered, the recent "Live Like We're Dying" by American Idol's Kris Allen.

islandsinthestream.jpg

Another '80s pop pleasure is the cheesy yet awesome Solid Gold! All the pop gems you could consume were neatly packaged into an hour-long countdown featuring all the stars of the day as well as some crazy dancers. I remember being particularly fascinated by Rex Smith's nearly painted-on pants!

So imagine my 8-year-old excitement when Dolly appeared on Solid Gold two weeks in a row performing "Potential New Boyfriend!" One week, she wore a ruffled off-the-shoulders yellow top and a wooly red skirt with a zig-zag hem. Very country! But the other week, Dolly wore this black, leather-like sex vixen ensemble, complete with her own painted on pants.

Both appearances were lovingly recorded on one of my two video tapes, but some way, some how, after many viewings, they got recorded over! I'm sure little screams of horror rang through our house! In recent years, I had searched for these performances on YouTube, but to no avail.

Finally, I was able to squeal with glee when I found this! Watch and appreciate the 1983 fabulosity of it all!