Entertainment

For some reason, I like American Idol, but it took me long enough to warm up to the show — just started watching it regularly last season.

Tonight was the elimination segment, from 9 down to 8. They’ve been doing the music of Dolly Parton, which I thought I would not prefer, but wound up enjoying a lot of it very much.

For entertainment, a band played “This Little Light of Mine,” and Dolly sang “Jesus and Gravity.”

Unashamedly lifting up the name of Jesus on that show.

I have no clue as to the faith of the participants of this season, but hearing the spiritual songs made my heart very heavy with compassion for all of them, and Lord, please remind me to pray for them, too.

Los Angeles — U.S. actress Morgan Fairchild, whose mother suffered a series of strokes before she died, is campaigning to raise awareness about warning signs of stroke.

Fairchild, who is featured in the “Give Me 5: Walk, Talk, Reach, See, Feel” campaign, is emphasizing the importance of getting to the emergency room quickly once symptoms present themselves. The campaign is a collaboration among the American Academy of Neurology, the American College of Emergency Physicians and the American Stroke Association.

Fairchild was a caregiver for her mother, who died in 1999.

“I witnessed firsthand the devastating effects of stroke on my mother,” Fairchild said in a statement. “Stroke is a killer, but for too many people it doesn’t need to be. If you know the warning signs and get medical help right away, you have an excellent chance of making a good recovery.”

The phrase “Give Me 5″ refers to the series of questions one can ask when assessing if someone might be having a stroke: Is one’s balance off? Is speech slurred or the face drooping? Is one side weak or numb? Is there any loss of vision? Is there a severe headache?

At age 62, the Dorian Gray of mudflap girls is as ambitious in the studio as she is under the knife. Refusing to fade into graceful grandma-hood, Dolly Parton is hellbent on returning to the top of the charts with “Backwoods Barbie,” an album calibrated to capitalize on the country-pop crossover.

Her girlish vibralto intact, Parton storms through a dozen songs, proving that where it counts, she’s still got it. When Carrie Underwood let Jesus take the wheel of her career, it was the smartest thing she (and her producers and handlers) could’ve done. The lesson’s not lost on Parton, whose Pentecostal upbringing pays dividends on the album’s second single, “Jesus and Gravity.”

The first single, “Better Get To Livin’,” a sappy inspirational song that melds every self-help cliché, fared poorly. Much better is Parton’s unlikely but appealing cover of Fine Young Cannibals’ “She Drives Me Crazy.” The bulk of the song, arranged as a fiddle-heavy pop song, hews close to the original until the finale, when it crescendos in a rollicking hoedown. It might blow your mind, but the real charmer is the album’s title track. It’s vintage Dolly: playing up her impoverished roots, making fun of her over-the-top-persona and charming a skeptical audience that may not know or care about her classic hits.

I’m just a backwoods Barbie, too much makeup, too much hair.
Don’t be fooled by thinkin’ that the goods are not all there.
Don’t let these false eyelashes lead you to believe
That I’m as shallow as I look, ’cause I run true and deep.

Say what you will about her faith in plastic surgery. There may be no less forgiving measure of aging than the pop charts, and Parton knows it. Tonight, her campaign to win the hearts and minds of American consumers goes into overdrive with a two-night stint on “American Idol.” (Rumors abound that Carly Smithson will sing “Jolene” and Jason Castro will take on “I Will Always Love You.”) Forget the 9 to 5 office set, Parton’s got her sight on her key demographic — the tween girl set, who should relate perfectly to her empowerment through loud and proud femininity.