Jolene

Released in February 1974 and produced by Bob Ferguson, Jolene arrived as Parton was beginning a solo career after seven years on Porter Wagoner's weekly television show and road show. Its title song was the lead single, issued before the album, and went to number one on the country chart. The second single, I Will Always Love You, also reached number one and is reported to express her feelings about the end of her working relationship with Wagoner. Parton wrote every track except Lonely Comin' Down, by Wagoner, and It Must Be You, by Blaise Tosti.

Early Morning Breeze is a re-recording of a song from Coat of Many Colors, and Lonely Comin' Down had first appeared on her 1972 Wagoner tribute album My Favorite Songwriter, Porter Wagoner. Billboard singled out Lonely Comin' Down as an exceptional ballad. Douglas Wolk of Pitchfork, reviewing the 2007 reissue, found "an enormous gulf between its two astonishing singles" and the filler around them. Sony reissued the album in a triple set with Coat of Many Colors and My Tennessee Mountain Home in 2010, and Lydia R. Hamessley wrote a 2025 book about it for Oxford University Press, Dolly Parton's Jolene.