Dolly Parton drops into Casino Rama tonight for the three-night stand. The country star has a new box set in stores, The Acoustic Collection, 1999-2002.

Idle hands really are the devil's mischief when it comes to Dolly Parton.

The 60-year-old buxom blonde and country music queen, who just released a bluegrass box set called The Acoustic Collection, 1999-2002, is as busy as ever.

She's in the middle of recording a new country music album for release next year -- tentatively called either Country Is As Country Does or the much more amusing Backwoods Barbie -- and fine-tuning music for the Broadway adaptation of her 1980 hit film, 9 To 5.

So when it comes to some much needed downtime, Parton combines pleasure with some business -- as in this interview.

"I'm in the bathtub," admits Parton, on the phone before arriving at Casino Rama tonight to begin a sold-out, three-night stand. "So if you hear me splattering around... This is the first break I've had and I thought, 'I wonder if she'd mind? Maybe I won't tell her' But since you asked."

Mind? I tell Parton I'll be the envy of every male music writer in the country.

"I'd be alright with you."

"I wouldn't have called them!" she responds with a laugh. "I knew I'd be alright with you."

Parton, who will also appear in Toronto tomorrow afternoon to launch the Dolly Parton Imagination Library in Canada (participants are sent an age-appropriate book every month from birth until age 5), never ceases to amaze.

She says Backwoods Barbie is also the name of one 19 songs she's written for the Broadway production of 9 To 5. Casting is still under way but the much decorated Parton says she'd love to be up for a Tony Award one day.

"I hope you do (see me at the Tonys), it'd be great!" she says. Parton didn't attend this year's much-discusssed CMA Awards but watched it on TV and has some definite opinions about Faith Hill's "Whaaat?" reaction backstage when she lost out to Carrie Underhill for best female vocalist.

"Oh, people are so full of s--t!," she says. "They make such a big deal out of everything. Everybody just wants to jump on somebody. (Faith's) a great gal. I'm certain she was just being funny. I mean this is like something I would do myself, like just being funny, assuming that everybody would know if I really meant that, I wouldn't do it. So I think she got a bad rap on that. I'm sure she feels terrible. And it's not fair."

As for an absent Keith Urban, whose win for best male vocalist reportedly got a standing ovation, Parton sympathizes with his stay in rehab for alcohol abuse.

"Everybody understands," says Parton. "You know a lot of people, especially creative, sensitive people, go through a lot of problems. It's a lot of stress. It's a lot of pressure on you when you hit it so big. So I understand how people can get caught up in drugs and alcohol, or a little too much of it, not that everybody ain't doing it to some degree. But I think it can just sometimes get out of hand when you're just so overworked and everybody wanting a piece of you and all. But he's a good guy. His heart's good. He's as pure as he can be. Sweet. And I know he's going to do well."

So how has Parton, who rose from the squalor of a cabin in the Smokey Mountains of eastern Tennessee to become country music's most prolific songwriter with album sales of 100 million worldwide, managed to avoid any self-destructive behaviour over the years?

"I've never been caught up in drugs or alcohol or anything like that because I was always so busy working," says Parton. "I took my work serious. I was just always stubborn enough to when it got a little too much for me, I just say, 'Hey, kiss my ass. I ain't killing myself for nobody.' Besides I don't like my mind to be different. I don't like to feel high or weird. I like playing it straight. A good pot of coffee is all I need to write a hit song."

That and a talk with God every once in a while.

"I always pray all the time and ask God to kind of direct me and lead me and I don't want to be spaced out if he tries to talk to me. I don't want to not hear it," she says.

When I point out some people take acid to talk to God, Parton responds: "Well, that's true. I guess he's there for everybody. I just want him to know what I'm saying. I don't want it to be slurred."