With the candy-floss hair and knock- 'em-out curves, Dolly Parton has made a living off her bawdy, larger-than-life image. But the 62-year-old musician is also an unequaled singer-songwriter with a Southern drawl-soaked soprano and a flair for the down-home turn of phrase.

Parton has penned more than two dozen No. 1 hits during her five-decade career; standouts for the 2006 Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts honoree include "Jolene," "Bargain Store" and "I Will Always Love You."

The singer, who recently finished writing songs for "9-to-5: The Musical" (based on her 1980 hit film), recently released her latest studio album, "Backwoods Barbie," a collection of pop-tinged country tunes.

Parton, who is scheduled to perform tonight at Arco Arena, called in from Los Angeles to discuss songwriting, influences and Jessica Simpson.

How's the tour going?

It's good. Of course, we always do our old favorites like "Jolene," "I Will Always Love You," "Coat of Many Colors" – all the stuff that people expect. But I have a new CD out, and we'll be doing songs from that, and there's a gospel medley where we do Neil Diamond's "Brother Love Salvation Show" and add a bunch of old gospel tunes in it.

Will you preview any of the songs from the "9-to-5" musical?

Yes, in fact "Backwoods Barbie" is a song I actually wrote for that. It's for the little character Doralee. Megan Hilty is playing my part in the musical, and she performs that particular song when the office workers think she's all banging the boss and they're ignoring her and giving her the cold shoulder.

She's very hurt and just trying to explain herself as to why she is the way she is – just a country girl's idea of being glam.

How was it writing songs for that musical, revisiting it after all these years?

Great but different. I knew all those characters so well. So when they asked me to write it, I thought, "Well, this should be easy." I've never written a musical, although I had, for years, been piddling around with writing my own life story as a musical. I found that it was much easier writing for the stage than it is trying to write for radio and records because I wasn't limited by time or (structure). It gave my imagination more freedom.

Do you remember the first song you wrote?

Oh yes, I wrote it before I could write, when I was 5. We used to raise our own corn, so we had lots of cobs lying around, and corn shucks and silk, and Mama used to make toys out of them and Daddy had put some poker-hole eyes in this corn cob and Mama made her a little silk dress. I named her Tassle Top, so that was my first song – "Little Tassle Top." But when I was 7, I started playing guitar and I started writing some dead- serious songs after that.

What was the point when you realized this wasn't a hobby but a way of life?

I was 10 when I went to play on the radio for the first time. They had a little audience there and I kept getting encore after encore – of course, I know now it was because I was little, not because I was good – but it gave me confidence, and I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing this.

You got your big break on "The Porter Wagoner Show." What kind of effect did he have, not just on your career, but on your craft?

Porter and I argued a lot and didn't get along all the time, but he was a real pro. I learned a lot of how not to be, but also how to entertain, how to conduct myself onstage.

What kind of things did you argue about?

Everything! Mostly because I was always independent and wanted to do things my way, and he wanted to do them his way. If I wrote my songs, I wanted them recorded the way I heard them. Porter always wanted to take my songs in private – let me show him all I wanted to do – and then he wanted to present them to the musicians. I'd get so frustrated when he'd miss a lick or he couldn't hit what I was hitting. I'd want to kill him and I'd finally just say, "Damn it – that's not the way it goes!" and I'd grab the guitar and play it for the musicians. And of course I'd have hell to pay later.

But you two always made up ... ?

Yeah, it was just one of those types of things, like when we'd argue over when I said I'd stay five years with his show and I wound up staying seven because he would just not hear of me leaving. That's why I wrote the song "I Will Always Love You" – because he wouldn't listen to me. I wrote it to say, "I appreciate what you've done, but if I stay around here, I'm going to be in your way and you're going to be in mine."

You wrote songs for the new Jessica Simpson album. What was that like?

I wrote the title song, which is called "Do You Know?" and I sang a duet with her. I think her album is fantastic.

She's getting a lot of flak for crossing over from pop to country ...

Oh, she gets a lot of flak if she wakes up in the morning, and I don't understand that. She's a very sweet, down-to- earth country girl – very much like myself. I'm compassion- ate toward her, and I think it's very unfair they give her such a bum rap. I think she sings her ass off, and I tried to sing my ass off with her.

Call The Bee's Rachel Leibrock, (916) 321-1176.