The Definitive Collection

These 25 classics form a sort of primer in the art of the Nashville turnaround, a country music staple in which the storyline is capped with a climactic twist, which serves to reshuffle everything leading up to it. When it's done right, the turnaround delivers the payoff with the concision of poetry and the perfect symmetry of algebra, and Lynn's own songs are designed as meticulously as the cover tunes, written by Nashville's canniest songsmiths. Loretta may have gotten a late start on her musical career, but she's spent close to a half century making up for it, as these 25 intimate slices of 20th Century American life so sublimely demonstrate. MCA. 2005.