Daisy Mae West

By RICHARD CORLISS

PERFORMER: DOLLY PARTON

ALBUM: SLOW DANCING WITH THE MOON

LABEL: COLUMBIA

THE BOTTOM LINE: She's not just a theme park or a punch line for bosom jokes; she's a singer-songwriter in peak form.

DOLLY PARTON WAS GETTING TO be one of those eternal celebrities, a familiar twinkle in the collective mind. At 47, she is still enough of a cultural touchstone to be of use to comedians when they need the punch line to a bosom joke. She might do a movie or a guest spot on Leno. But mostly, she's been a stately float in the Icon Parade -- the 50-tooth smile encased in antebellum shady-lady couture and a platinum hayloft of hair. Should we expect more of the only woman to have a theme park (Dollywood) named for her?

Yes, and Slow Dancing with the Moon is an ideal reminder of Parton's status as a premier singer-songwriter. Her plaints, like I Will Always Love You (a recent chart tyrant for Whitney Houston), expand the reach of country music to both coasts and most places in between. But Parton is her own best interpreter. Country guitar picker Chet Atkins gives her this impish praise: "She has more talent than I've got in my little finger."

On this CD superproduction, Atkins is one of many guest stars, including Vince Gill, Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Emmylou Harris and the unavoidable Billy Ray Cyrus. On Romeo the achy-breaky hunk emits a self-mocking libidinal growl while a female chorus ogles his beefcake and Dolly purrs, "I may not be in love/ But let me tell you,/ I'm in heat." (The Romeo video got Parton caught in a cross fire between publicity and piety. No surprise: publicity won.)

Half of the 12 songs here are about sex, imminent or recollected. The album's first words -- "You've seen me naked in more ways than one/ You've seen me done up, seen me come undone" -- seem ribald, until you realize that the song (Full Circle) is a kind of silver-anniversary present to a constant lover. The potently plaintive (You Got Me Over) A Heartache Tonight is a woman's thank-you note to a friend who slept with her as a curative to her love-sick blues. In the silky I'll Make Your Bed, the promise of sexual favors sounds as natural as a gift for home cooking. It's not a tease, it's a forthrightly bountiful offer that could set a fellow to swooning. Dolly's giggle, the chirp at the end of a sultry line, proves that her sensuality is guileless -- a neat blend of Daisy Mae and Mae West.

She can sing fretful-mother tunes (What Will Baby Be) or hymns religious (High and Mighty) and secular (Jackie DeShannon's Put a Little Love in Your Heart) with the same innocent intensity. In the lovely title number (written by Mac Davis), the singer watches a 15-year-old girl in love with music, in love with love, and remembers her own long-ago youth. The whole album provides Parton with a dandy career retrospective. She comes full circle to reconsider a lifetime of womanly misbehavin' in the purity of her girlish voice. We're < all grown-ups, she says, and still kids.