Lee Ann Womack
Album: The Definitive Collection
Label: Hump Head
Tracks: 17 + 17
Website: http://www.humpheadrecords.com/

The Definitive Collection of Lee Ann Womack is a bit of beast. Running to thirty four tracks, it sits between a more compact hits album and a full bells and whistles box set.

Between 1997 and 2008 Womack released half a dozen studio albums: they swung from traditional country on her self titled debut and its follow up Some Things I Know; the pop crossover of I Hope You Dance, Something Worth Leaving Behind and then back to the traditional with There's More Where That Came From and Call Me Crazy. This collection has no truck with continuity so you get I Think You Know from her last album rubbing shoulders with You've Got Me to Talk To Me from her debut.

A contemporary of Trisha Yearwood, Martina McBride and Faith Hill, Womack has not achieved the same levels of success. Quite why is baffling; she has the voice, the songs and the adaptability as this collection shows.

The only recoding not represented here is the Christmas album The Season For Romance. With the inclusion of the singles There is A God and Finding My Way Back Home, She's Got You - her contribution to the tribute album Remembering Patsy Cline - and two collaborations with Willie Nelson - I'll never Be Free from Outlaws and Angels and the the superlative Mendocino County Line from The Great Divide - this truly is a Definitive Collection.

John 'The Jacket' Hawes