We caught up with Rhonda Vincent this week to learn a bit more about her latest album, Destinations and Fun Places, which is available today (August 9), and one of the tracks from the project, a grassed-up version of Dolly Parton’s big 1980 hit, 9 to 5.
Nine To Five, of course, was also a very popular movie released that year, starring Dolly, along with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. A bit of a comic farce, with Dabney Coleman as the ladies’ overbearing office boss, its theme song, written and sung by Parton, became a major crossover hit, going to #1 on multiple charts and winning two Grammy Awards in 1981.
We asked Rhonda how she came to pick this one to record, and it turns out it is quite a story.
“We were at the Grand Ole Opry for Dolly’s birthday in 2023, and they asked everyone to sing Dolly Parton songs. I immediately said I wanted to sing Jolene, but they told me, ‘No, you wont. Someone else is doing Jolene. You’ll need to find another song.’
So, I looked through Dolly’s songs, trying to find one that I knew well. I ended up doing 9 to 5, and the response was overwhelming. I called Dolly’s office and asked if it had ever been done in a bluegrass style, and they said, ‘We don’t think it has.’
We were excited to include it on this project, knowing that it has the destination of going to work, fitting the destinations theme. People were requesting it, so we knew we needed to include it. Every time we play it, people are singing along. They know this song, they love this song, and I am thrilled that we got to do the first bluegrass version.”
Though this new album finds Vincent singing 13 familiar songs, she doesn’t look at it as a covers project.
“My Grand Ole Opry sister Jeannie Seely started writing I Miss Missouri for me several years ago. She lost everything, including the lyrics she had written, in the Nashville flood of 2010. Fast forward to February 28, 2020, the night she made my greatest dream come true by inviting me to be a member of the Grand Ole Opry. We have since become close friends, and after the Opry invitation, she said the lyrics started coming back to her. She invited Erin Enderlin and me to join her in writing the song. I Miss Missouri was the inspiration for creating a ‘destinations’ project, with all the songs representing a destination.”
And she says that the reaction to these many well-loved songs has been raucous on stage when they play them live.
We have been performing many songs from the album already and have been for the last year or so. We started performing 9 to 5 in 2023, pretty much as soon as we recorded it. If it’s something we love, like Please Mr. Please, we immediately start performing it, especially to gauge the response and see how people react to it.
Please Mr. Please has probably gotten the greatest response because of how unique it is in an up-tempo style. We’ve been singing The City of New Orleans, Please Mr. Please, 9 to 5, Take Me Home, Country Roads, Old Brown County Barn, and will soon be performing all of them on stage.”
So let’s have a listen to how Rhonda Vincent & The Rage interpret 9 to 5 in a bluegrass style.
9 to 5, and the full Destinations and Fun Places album, are available now from popular download and streaming services online.
