Dolly Parton opened the 2016 Tanglewood season on her Pure & Simple tour, attacting an impressive audience on a picnic-perfect June evening; watching her fans stream into the Koussevitsky Music Shed was the closest we’ll ever get to seeing a Mardi Gras parade in Lenox. In a show that lasted 2.5 hours and included 28 songs, she also told so many stories that you wish you’d brought along a stenographer. Dolly Parton emerged some fifty years ago onto a fairly cloistered country western scene which she helped bust loose into a dominate place in pop culture, becoming head of a global entertainment business while maintaining her charm, her artistic integrity, and her figure!
Dolly Parton’s Pure & Simple tour
Ms. Parton’s Pure & Simple tour is organized around a CD, to be released in August, which contains a suite of love songs she wrote to celebrate her fiftieth wedding anniversary. Love seems to be Dolly Parton’s organizing principle, and much of her patter relates to her love of her own family, her childhood home in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, and then to the family all of us comprise. After that, she talks alot about her rhinestone costumes and her boobs. But perhaps the most remarkable thing she talked about is the Imagination Library, which she established in 1995 for the benefit of children in her childhood home, as a tribute to her illiterate father. Since then, it has given 100,000,000 books children.
Making up Dolly’s band were Richard Dennison, Tom Rutledge, and Kent Wells (and a drum machine) and besides displaying her beautiful vocal technique, Ms. Parton also played a half-dozen instruments, including banjo, which she played backwards on one number! Especially endearing was a medley of ’60s songs, including The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down, mentioning her affection for Levon Helm and The Band, saying that his daughter Amy was in attendance.
Tanglewood 2016 pop, rock, jazz schedule
June 2016 at Tanglewood
July 2016 at Tanglewood
August & September 2016 at Tanglewood
Tanglewood concerts June 2016
June 17 | 7 pm Shed | Dolly Parton
June 18 | 7 pm Shed | Earth, Wind & Fire
June 19 | 2:30pm Shed | Brian Wilson’s Pet Sounds
June 21 | 7 pm Shed | Jacksone Browne
June 24 | 8pm Seiji Ozawa Hall | Chris Botti
June 25 | 5:45 pm Shed | A Prairie Home Companion at Tanglewood with Garrison Keillor
July 1 | 8 pm Shed | Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration
July 2 | 7 pm Shed | Bob Dylan and His Band, Mavis Staples
July 3 & 4 | 7 pm Shed | James Taylor with his All-Star Band
July 10 | 2:30 pm Shed | Boston Pops with very special guest Seth MacFarlane
July 31 | 8 pm Seiji Ozawa Hall | Chick Corea Trio featuring Christian McBride and Brian Blade
August 13 | 8 pm Shed | John Williams’ Film Night
August 23 | 7 pm Shed | Train with Andy Grammer
August 26 | 8 pm Shed | “Raiders of the Lost Ark” with Orchestra
August | 8 pm Shed | Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma
September 1| 8 pm Shed | Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!
September 2 | 8 pm Shed | The Boston Pops with the B-52s
About Tanglewood: box office, tickets, getting there, nearby hotels
Tickets for the 2016 Tanglewood season, $12-$124, go on sale January 24 starting at 10 a.m. through Tanglewood’s website, www.tanglewood.org, SymphonyCharge at 888-266-1200, and at the Symphony Hall Box Office at 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston MA. Tanglewood brochures with complete programs and information on how to order tickets will be available in early February by calling 617-638-9467. For further information, please call the Boston Symphony Orchestra at 617-266-1492 or visit www.tanglewood.org. 2016 Tanglewood schedule – PDF.
Follow this link for Berkshires travel information, including public transportation within Berkshire county and Amtrak and Peter Pan bus schedules.
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Getting around the Tanglewood campus
The Tanglewood campus, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Music Center comprises several hundred acres in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge. It is the location of the Koussevitsky Music Shed and Ozawa Hall, where hundreds of thousands attend concerts and a variety of events, including picnics. We always advise new visitors to arrive early and take their daily walking exercise wandering the beautiful Tanglewood grounds.
Here is a dynamic map of the Tanglewood grounds, with photos and information for such points of interest as Aaron Copland Library, Highwood Manor House, The Glass House, and The Lion’s Gate.
