Dolly Parton's larger-than-life country music at the Hollywood Bowl

The fabulous paradox of Dolly Parton is that this pint-sized dynamo has created and sustained a larger-than-life, often-cartoonish persona immersed in glitz and glamour without losing the connection to her humble beginnings in the impoverished backwoods of Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains. At the first of two sold-out shows over the weekend at the Hollywood Bowl -- on her most extensive North American tour in a quarter century -- the country singer and songwriter who turned 70 in January was every bit the effusive performer, even while apologizing to the audience for nursing a slight head cold. "It's a good thing it's not a chest cold," she quipped in one of a string of self-effacing one-liners targeting her famous figure. "That'd be like a giraffe with a sore throat." Her current "Pure & Simple" tour, drawn from her new album with the same title, creates an elegant stage setting, with half a dozen curtains flowing from the rafters down to the stage, gorgeously lighted in colors that helped to highlight her pristine white jumpsuit.