Dolly Parton Talks 'Blue' Album, Gay Fans and Willie Nelson's 'Dork' Days

"They know I understand what it's like to be me, and to fight for being myself," Parton says of why she's always had a large following in the LGBT community

Dolly Parton doesn't really do "small," and that trait has informed her genre-spanning 42nd studio album "Blue Smoke," which is out today. The legend recently hosted a press event in Nashville to talk about the new album -- which covers about as much musical ground as any she has ever released.

She told Billboard that the diverse mix of music on the album was intentional. "I didn't know what I wanted to do as far as a record right now," she admitted. "It's so hard to know, as I don't usually get played on the radio so much anymore. So, I don't really try to tailor make things for radio. I try to do things that I think my fans would want to hear, and things that mean something to me. I thought 'Well, I've been around this long, and I've had the chance to do some of everything. I just wanted to put together a record, and I wrote in the liner notes that I felt this was a culled assortment of all of the things I had done through the years. I'm a girl of many colors, and this was an album of many colors. I think it touched on the bluegrass, the gospel, the more pop things, and the rock things. I think it just has a good variety, and that was on purpose."

Parton said the title of the album has been floating around inside her psyche for a while now. "When I first started doing my bluegrass stuff, I always thought that would make a great title for a bluegrass band. I didn't do anything with that, but I loved the title. So, I thought 'I need to write a song about 'Blue Smoke' of some kind, and wondered what that would be. I thought maybe a train, so I wrote it a long time ago. Then, when I put together a tour and an album, that song kept coming back to me. Of course, it also represented the blue smoke that rises off the Smoky Mountains. It was just one of those things where it kept coming around and coming around, plus the other part of it was there were so much bluegrass influences. It just seemed to fit all those things."

The album also contains a pair of collaborations with artists that Parton has a deep connection with -- the Grammy-nominated "You Can't Make Old Friends" with Kenny Rogers, as well as "From Here To The Moon And Back," a cut with Willie Nelson that originally appeared on last year's "To All The Girls" disc.