Joke all you want about how Dolly Parton missed the "No Stairway" sign on the wall. On a CD-closing version of "Stairway to Heaven," the fifty-six-year-old country superstar remembers Led Zeppelin's burned-out rock-radio classic as a singer's showcase, not a shell for flashy electric-guitar-playing. Sticking with the understated country and bluegrass of her last two CDs, Parton throws herself into the lyrics, whispering the beginning and belting like Tammy Wynette by the end. Although she also turns Bread's 1971 hit "If" into an effective torch ballad, Halos & Horns doesn't so much rehash bygone eras as showcase Parton's skills as an interpreter — especially of herself. The beautifully sad "Not for Me" still captures a young woman questioning her place in the world. And in the new "Hello God," she articulates our national post-September 11th feeling of "why?" Elaborates Parton: "If we're still on speaking terms, can you help us like before?"

“All Along the Watchtower”

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."