Dolly Parton singing "Stairway to Heaven"

Indeed it is, plus Zeppelin considered themselves to be just a very loud folk/blues band, and their third album backs that up.

Hold on a second… everybody here is missing the coolest part of this post, which comes at the very end of the video. There’s a URL on the screen for the “Historic Mega-Site” of Cecil Buffington - cecilbuffington.com - the person that created and uploaded the music video. Turns out the website is completely old-school and maybe I’m a dork but it’s all completely fascinating. Explore Cecil Buffington - The Gold Kist Years or check out his book “The Chicken Plant” on Amazon.

Still the best cover version:

Just messing with you.

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In my book bluegrass is a subset of country. Afficianados of either/both may argue amongst themselves, once I’ve left. :wink:

Not on the best sellers list

I felt the opposite way about it - the first half was an ok cover, sounded like yet another competent but uninspired cover, though as another comment said “Buried the lede - it’s Stairway to Heaven on a banjo!”, but the second half was where she kicked off and did something with it. What she did was, yeah, more like bluegrass than like Stairway, but it had some authenticity and drive to it.

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I once worked at a breakfast cafe where a waitress who loved Dolly brought in this cd. She thought that Dolly wrote Stairway and that it was one of her most incredible tunes. Fortunately, the cd cover had proper attribution, and a good laugh was shared by all.

Dolly’s a brilliant songwriter, but I don’t think she’d go full mystic anytime soon.

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All very impressive productions, to be sure.

I’d put the Beatniks #1, followed by the Doors.

The Elvis one was just embarrassing.

DJ Earworm’s Stairway to Bootleg Heaven is built around this cover and is amazing.

Thank god that people who love music and music history aren’t reading from such a reductive book and can see parallels departures and nuance.

Love the fact that Dolly can spark debate and passion!

It’s just taxonomy. Of which there is far, far too much in modern music, generally. One can see nuance, departures, tangents, acknowledgements, appropriation, and so on and on and on without erecting taxonomical barriers. Banjo is more bluegrass than country? Do me a favour. Country covers a very wide range of musical styles which do have something in common. The need to say ‘this is country’ and ‘this is not’ or ‘this is not because it is bluegrass’ or is something else, is just pointless angels on the head of a pin for those more concerned with words than music.

Just another thought. Why is everyone banging on about the banjo and not the mandolin and the fiddle. The mandolin, which represents an Italian influence in Bluegrass and the fiddle/ violin that we can hear strains of Scottish bagpipes. Who of us can make any qualitative judgment here, populist or academic. Personally I like the idea of styles consuming styles where there is some form of attribution or sense of respect.

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It’s the hierarchy of gentlemen. A gentleman is someone who can play the banjo accordian bagpipes but does not.

Apologies for coming on a bit strong in my initial comments… Had a few whiskeys and got fired up over Dolly!
Just don’t get me started on the dulcimer!!

Apology absolutely not needed. You were just lucky enough to touch one of my bêtes noires.

House, garage, drum’n’bass, whatever
Heavy rock, heavy metal, nu metal, death metal, whatever.

Also, this (which lists bluegrass)

There must be 60 or 70 different categories there, FFS!

It’s all just music!

(And Dolly’s Stairway was a mess. I can imagine an arrangement of Stairway with banjos that would work. This was - I don’t know - exploitative?)

Have a couple of fingers for me. I’m not allowed any, any more. :wink:

When it comes to Dolly’s version, I really like when DJ Earworm mashed it up with Laurie Anderson, Eurythmics, etc.

Bye :slight_smile:

Not an aficionado, but a fan(atic).

Bluegrass doesn’t traditionally have drums. Bluegrass can be quite hectic and moving, but this sounded kind of hot-messy to me.

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