It's 6 a.m. in California where Dolly Parton's calling from, but the Country Music Hall Of Famer sounds as bubbly as ever as she inquires about where her interviewer is. "I'm on Pacific Standard time, but I guess you're on Country Standard Time," she giggles, before settling into a conversation about "Little Sparrow," her second CD for Americana/bluegrass indie label Sugar Hill and the eagerly-awaited follow-up to last year's IBMA Bluegrass Album Of The Year, "The Grass Is Blue."

"I'm real proud of the album," she enthuses. "We started work on it almost right after 'The Grass Is Blue' came out because I felt like we needed to keep the momentum going. I didn't want to do a total bluegrass album, which would have been the most predictable thing to do, but I didn't want to get pigeonholed Ð or Pigeon Forged in my case," she laughs, referring to her Tennessee home and the location of her amusement park, Dollywood.

"I didn't want people to think I was only going to do bluegrass because it was more about the acoustic stuff, more about me kind of going back to my roots.

"So, we just wanted to go ahead and do it while I had the momentum going, and I wanted to take it a step or two further. That's why we kind of added the Irish element with Altan, the group that I had used a few years ago on a live album we did out at Dollywood, called 'Heartsongs.' They're such sweet and wonderful people, and I just thought well, why don't we add some things that are more mountain? So, we're really not calling it bluegrass, we're calling it blue mountain music, like a cross between bluegrass and mountain. They called the Smokey Mountains down there 'blue,' and my brother Floyd wrote a song called "Blue Mountains" Ð I'm probably going to record it on the next album Ð and so that phrase fits more what we're doing now, I think."

Just as she says, 'Little Sparrow,' produced by long-time associate Steve Buckingham, is indeed a step or two beyond bluegrass Ð but only so far; it's not a dramatic change, of course.

Most of the musicians from "The Grass Is Blue" reappear, including Jim Mills (banjo), Bryan Sutton (guitar), Barry Bales (bass), Stuart Duncan (fiddle) and Jerry Douglas (dobro) with the substitution of youthful mandolin wizard Chris Thile for the veteran Sam Bush.

Singers Alison Krauss, Dan Tyminski, Rhonda and Darrin Vincent, Claire Lynch and Keith Little are back again, too, but there are some new names as well Ð not only Altan, but the multi-talented Carl Jackson, Sonya Isaacs and her sister, Becky Isaacs Bowman of The Isaacs (Parton sang on a track on Sonya's recent Lyric Street country debut), Maura O'Connell and new country vocalist Rebecca Lynn Howard.

The album reflects a similar mix of sources; like the previous one, it mixes old country and bluegrass songs, some left-field surprises Ð Collective Soul's "Shine," Cole Porter's "I Get A Kick Out Of You" Ð and some of Parton's own creations, both old and ("My Blue Tears," "Down From Dover") and new ("Bluer Pastures," "Marry Me," "Mountain Angel" and the title track).

Though she wanted to do something new, Parton is also conscious of the way in which bluegrass and acoustic country music dictates a healthy degree of consistency.

"I feel that in order to sell this kind of heartfelt, gut-wrenching music, it's very important to be true to the music," she says. "I wouldn't want to just add one or two of these songs in with a solid country album, or a pop or rock album like I've done in the past. So, I'm always going to try to do one of these kind of albums at least once every 18 months to 2 years, where they're purer and narrow in their content Ð especially the emotion and the sound Ð and all acoustic. Even if I go ahead and do a solid country album, with drums and electric instruments, or do another pop album, or a dance record Ð who knows? I've been out here long enough and done enough stuff that I feel like I can do whatever Ð I'd probably need to be true to whatever that was. If I'm going to do a full dance record, it should be a dance record."

"But I just really love this music, it's really true to my background, to my heart, to my soul, so I think that I'm on to this now. This is what I used to do when I was doing 'Coat Of Many Colors' and 'Tennessee Mountain Home' and all those songs I used to write Ð but I couldn't make a living at it. This is the best music there is, but there's no money in it. So back in the early days, I had to make that decision Ð am I going to be just true to this music and make no money, or am I going to be a star, make money, be able to get rich so I can afford to sing like I'm poor? Ð and that's what I did," she chuckles.

One of the most important things about "singing like I'm poor," she says, is working directly with the musicians.

As on "The Grass Is Blue," many of her performances on "Little Sparrow" are "scratch vocals," done as reference points for the pickers while laying down the instrumental tracks.

"That's because I'm going to basically sing a song with the same heart the first time," she notes. "I really play off the musicians and what I feel from them, and they do off of me as well, and it kind of meshes into something. I wouldn't dream of doing this kind of record without being there with everybody. In other styles of music, you can cut your tracks separately, but not this one; this is music of the heart, and I think the musicians need it, and I think the singer needs it from the musicians."

"So, on a lot of these songs, the scratch vocal is the one we kept because it was the one that had the most emotion; even if it wasn't necessarily the best technically, it was the best emotionally, and I always go for that. Steve Buckingham's great about that, and so is Gary Paczosa, the engineer, who's so helpful in so many ways. But they both believe in that as well, especially if you've got a good vocal; they'd rather work on cleaning up little flaws than take that whole vocal off because you won't feel it exactly the same way again."

It's not surprising that in talking about the album, Parton focusses on the songs themselves; after all, she's one of country music's most highly-regarded writers herself.

Indeed, one of the most interesting things about "Little Sparrow" is Parton's decision to revisit several of her previously-recorded numbers.

"'My Blue Tears' has always been one of my favorites," she says, "and I've recorded it two or three times. We even did it for the Trio album (with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris), but I don't think it ever came out. And Linda recorded it several years ago, and I sang with her on it on one of her albums ("Get Closer," 1982).

"But you know, there are just some songs that are your own favorites as a writer - like 'Down From Dover.' I just never thought that one had its fair shot because it was just lost on an album. It was the same with 'My Blue Tears,' and since I was also looking for that kind of Old World sound, mostly because of I wanted to have Altan on the album, I just thought 'oh, that'd be beautiful to do.' I just always thought it needed to be done slow because when I originally cut it it was a medium-tempo, kind of bluegrass thing. And I just thought 'Dover' needed a better shot, because I 'd always just loved that story, and I'd had to leave a verse out back years ago. I hated that, I always missed my verse, so I thought well, if nothing else, I'm going to do it just to put the pieces back together.

"As a writer, when you have to make cuts, you feel almost like you didn't explain the whole story. I remember back when I cut it, Porter Wagoner, who was producing, had said 'that's just too damn long, it's a good song but it's too damn long. You're going to have to cut something out of it.' And I just grieved over what I was going to have to take out, and now it's back Ð and I'm glad."

Other songs on the album come from even further back in Parton's career, like the durable gospel classic, "In The Sweet By And By."

"That is a song that I have always loved," she says. "Back in our old Pentecostal church, they'd always clap their hands and sing it kind of hard and straight, but being a writer and a person that loves words, ever since I was little, I always thought that song said the prettiest things. A couple of years ago, when we opened the Gospel Hall Of Fame at Dollywood, I did an album of old, old gospel songs, just to be sold at Dollywood. I was definitely going to do that song, and so I just started playing around with it, and I said to the musicians, 'let's slow that down, do it real, real slow and see how that sounds.'

"We started singing it, and it sounded so good that I thought it ought to be heard more, so I pulled it off that album. When we started working on this one, we were looking for melodies that had those long, beautiful chords that Altan would be able to play some of that Irish sound on, and I thought well, this one would fit that, and it sounds old anyway Ð and it is, that's an old public domain song Ð so I just picked it because I thought it laid wide open for that beautiful Irish sound that we could do. So, just like all these other songs that one came inspired: 'take me, take me, I'm the one, get me.' So I just kind of listened to my musical heart on it."

Similarly, on the distinctly modern "A Tender Lie" Ð a hit for Restless Heart just over a decade ago Ð Parton says she was grabbed first by the song, and only later conceived of the spare, restrained setting it gets on "Little Sparrow."

"When that song first came out, years ago, I was on my way to the office and when it started playing on the radio, I just cried my eyes out. I don't know why, it's just the way that the melody went, and just the way it said 'and how much more damage now, honestly?' It was the way they said 'honestly,' it's like, 'what could one tender lie do?' And then I thought, if I ever get the chance or have a reason to do that song, I'm going to do it. So, it just hit me that it would be beautiful done real acoustic and just real sweet and to have Alison Krauss and Dan Tyminski sing on it because we sing so sweet together, and I'm crazy about Alison. Our voices blend so well. Doesn't that one just pull your heart out?"

"I brought all these songs to the album," Parton concludes. "I picked these personally, because they were personal favorites of mine. That's not to say that I won't do a full-blown bluegrass one next, because I may Ð I really love doing it Ð but I wanted to just go a little further with this album. Some of the stuff was kind of a shock, even to Steve, but everyone wound up loving it Ð and the musicians just got a kick out of getting to do something different."