Somewhere between the big boobs and blonde wig that have come to define Dolly Parton lies one of music’s business brains. Parton was the first female successfully to blend country and pop, two decades before Sheryl Crow and Shania Twain. She became a brand before anyone knew what brands were and now, at the age of 56, she has staged a comeback as slick as Santana’s.

Parton’s first tour for ten years, which started in the US in the summer and began its British leg on Friday night in Manchester, follows on from a trio of award-winning albums released during the past three years that have taken the superstar back to her bluegrass roots and revived her credible country career.

Which doesn’t mean that Parton has ditched her glamorous showbiz side. After a couple of jolly toe-tapping songs from her eight-piece backing band the Blueniques, she sneaked on stage in an all-in-one trouser suit that not even Liz Hurley would dare to wear. It was powder blue, skin-tight and almost see-through, studded with rhinestones and slashed to her chest at the top and below each knee, where it turned into cascades of ruffles. On her feet were strappy sandals so high-heeled that she could take only tiny steps, and on her head was a huge heap of hair.

Parton looked like a Las Vegas cowgirl-cum-hooker — albeit one with a fabulous figure — which was exactly what the crowd wanted.

Most of the 90-minute set at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall was made up of tracks from Parton’s recent albums: 1999’s The Grass is Blue, the Grammy Award-winning Little Sparrow and this year’s Halos & Horns.

Train Train and Grass is Blue set the mood, a lengthy Mountain Angel was preceded by a chat about growing up poor in Tennessee with 11 siblings and a magical mother, and Collective Soul, Cover Shine and Little Sparrow gave Parton the chance to prove that she’s as powerful a singer as she is a songwriter.

Highlights included a rollicking banjo-backed Rocky Top, the classic Coat of Many Colours dedicated to her Mum, and Smokey Mountain Memories, a song she said was about her late father vowing never to leave Tennessee.

For Parton’s pop fans there was a handful of hits — Jolene, 9 to 5 and an a cappella medley that began with Islands in the Stream — but they were little more than a light-hearted interlude, not that the gig was ever heavy going.

At one point, Parton asked everyone to laugh out loud, claiming that it was cheap therapy. “I’ve saved you money,” she said. “Apart from what you spent to get in. But I need that. Heaven knows it costs a lot to look this cheap.”

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