Dolly Parton's 3CD set in the import budget "Legendary" series may be the best available compilation there is in the market for fans expecting a fairly broad-based representation of Dolly's recorded output from her long and illustrous career. Most other "best of", "greatest hits" or career retrospectives have tended to concentrate on her pop hits from the 80s onwards at the expense of her far more potent country recordings from the 70s.

The first CD is quintessential Dolly, consisting of her most stellar and heartfelt work from the 70s. There's "Coat of Many Colours", "Just Because I'm A Woman", "Jolene", "I Will Always Love You", "In The Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)", "One Of Those Days" and lots lots more great stuff. This first CD alone is worth the price of the set.

The second CD covers material from Dolly's most commercially viable period but it is also arguably her weakest set. Full of obvious crossover hits (eg, "9 to 5"), pointless covers, (eg "Save The Last Dance For Me") and calculated duets ("Islands In The Stream"), it is saved by a handful of nuggets like "Old Flames (Can't Hold A Candle To You"), "Bargain Store" and the incomparable "Two Doors Down". The uptempo "Don't Call It Love" (covered by the fabulous Dusty Springfield) and the funky "Potential New Boyfriend" are also highlights. Half of these 17 tracks I'll happily listen to any day. The rest I'd programme out.

The final CD lies somewhere in between. Mixing her earliest with her latest material, it gives us a sense of the road Dolly has travelled. Whilst the country classic "Mules Skinner Blues", "Joshua", "Almost In Love", "To Daddy" and the early Porter Wagoner duet "The Last Thing On My Mind" are truly wonderful, there're also the occasional duffer like "Downtown". Dolly should leave pop classics like this to pure stylists. Not that she does a bad job. Only that she should render Caeser's to Caeser.

Dolly Parton has had such a long and varied career it's hard to assemble a perfect retrospective befitting the range of her achievements. Until somebody makes a serious attempt at this feat, "Legendary" is for my money a worthy and respectable substitute. Highly recommended.

I'll start by saying, I am no fan of country music. However, as a kid, I had limited exposure to the country music of the late '60s/early 70's thanks to my dad's weekly viewing of Hee Haw... Torture. Having said that, that's what I consider to be country, Buck Owens, Roy Clark, George Jones, Willie Nelson, Tammy Wynette, Lynn Anderson, Charlie Pride, etc... Again, I'm NO fan of country, but I'm vaguely aware of its past performers.

Today, I find the whole "Country" scene to be very contrived and the only stars I'm aware of are the ones that get any media coverage. Garth, Shania, Randy Travis... and that's about it. Is it rock, is it country? Who cares?

Not having any interest at all in country music, I bought this collection for several reasons:

1. I knew some of Dolly's big, early hits (Jolene, Coat of Many Colors. Hadn't heard them for years, but I knew her early work is held in high regard and wanted to hear for myself what all the hype was about.

2. Wanted to hear the original version of "I Will Always Love You".

3. This collection had a LOT of music for the money. Best bang for your buck. I couldn't pass up this collection. Cheapness does have its rewards!

This has turned out to be one of the biggest surprises in my collection. While not every song is great (and some are quite bad), by and large, this is a fantastic set of songs. The ones one I tend to like best are the ones I assume to be from early in her career. The emotion that comes through on the early songs really strikes the listener with an authenticity that is rarely heard in music. The low point in the collection would have to be the songs that seem to have been recorded in the 80's; mostly light-weight fluff that does not strike an emotional connection with the listener.

Dolly successfully projects a wide range of emotions in this collection: humor, sadness, rejection, strength, vulnerability, joy, sensuality. It's hard to listen to this music and not like the artist as a person.

Oh, by the way, in my opinion, Dolly's version of "I Will Always Love You" smokes Whitney's version. Dolly's version truly conveys the emotion of the song (sadness), whereas all you notice with Whitney's version are her vocal abilities (which, admittedly, are impressive). This is not a love song (in the traditional sense, anyway).

Legendary is a new collection of Dolly Parton songs. It contains 50 of her hits, ranging from her career which started in the 60's, to the 90's, and everything in between. In essence, this collection is a breath of fresh air, after many greatest hits albums released in the 90's, that seem to lack her biggest hits. This collection covers many of her years of hits, very complete, perhaps the most complete collection out there. This is where a newer fan of Dolly would like to start their collection, with a nice collection of her hits. I highly reccomend this CD, very good bargain for what you get.

This compilation of Dolly's RCA recordings includes nearly all the famous songs she recorded during that period. Dolly fans (like me) can point to missing tracks that could have been included. However, none of them are absolutely essential to the casual buyer, at whom this collection is targetted.

Never mind - the absence of some tracks (which can be found elsewhere) is more than compensated for by the inclusion of the original Two Doors Down. Dolly recorded two different versions and this is the first time that the first version has been made available on CD. Dolly's diehard fans will buy this just for that.

For those who only want an overview of Dolly's music, this is a good choice, although the import price means that you may prefer to buy the two solo Essential volumes, which between them contain 40 tracks, often the same ones that can be found here.

If you are new to the delights of Dolly's wonderful talent this is an excellent place to start.

This contains many familiar radio songs, a few songs she wrote that became big hits for other artists (such as Jolene and I Will Always Love You) plus a host of songs spanning a good majority of the ladies career. She is displayed as a fine singer, superlative interpreter and skilled songwriter.

The range of songs spans from the Country Disco of her late 70's early 80's material, to early material that hints at the direction she has recently returned to with her most recent releases. But nestled among these are a surprising variety of styles, all equally suited to her dynamic and flexible voice.

As someone who has recently discovered Dolly as an artist (and not simply the bosomy, bewigged sexpot that has long been her media image) this collection comes as a revelation. It has wetted my appetite for more of her early work as well as referenced her new material such as Little Sparrow and Halos and Horns which stand as the finest folk albums of recent times.

Dolly, to these ears, is arguably America's finest folk singer in the purest sense of the term. Her music comes from her roots and these are pure Tennesee Mountain bluegrass. The diversity of styles shows how far modern popular music has taken these original roots and broadened them into a very wide range indeed.

You may not like all of this material (a few of them fall a little too far on the side of country MOR for my taste) but you have to admire the spirit that created it and when it comes down to it, most of this collection is essential.

Wonderful stuff.