About The Grass Is Blue

The Grass Is Blue is the thirty-seventh solo studio album by American singer-songwriter Dolly Parton. It was released on October 26, 1999, by Sugar Hill and Blue Eye Records. The album won a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album and "Travelin' Prayer" was nominated for Best Female Country Vocal Performance.

Parton found herself without a record label for the second time in a year when Decca Records closed its Nashville office in early 1999, just months after the release of Hungry Again. Throughout the 1990s, she had been losing ground with country radio, though her album sales had remained strong for much of that time. The idea for the project was brought to Parton's attention one night in July 1999 when she was having dinner with Steve Buckingham. He mentioned to her that bluegrass fans, when asked which artist they would most like to make a bluegrass album, overwhelmingly cited her. Parton told Billboard, "We were both shocked, but then I thought, since I manage myself now and have my own label and can do what I want, why not do it?" By the end of August 1999, Parton had recorded the album in Nashville with Buckingham producing and top musicians such as Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, Stuart Duncan, Alison Krauss, and Rhonda Vincent accompanying. Speaking about the song selection, Parton said, "I've always loved bluegrass, having grown up in and around mountain music and bluegrass, so I chose some songs I've been singing all my life." Parton said of the recording process, "It went really fast because these are the world's best bluegrass pickers and singers, who've been doing these songs forever!.