Various: Just Because I'm a Woman

Reviewed by GRAHAM REID

Herald rating: * * * *

There are rare artists whose later years bring out their best. Dolly Parton's recent "bluegrass trilogy"albums - The Grass is Blue, Little Sparrow and Halos and Horns - are among the finest of her career, although as with Johnny Cash's American Recordings series, they have commanded column inches and Grammys disproportionate to their sales figures.

The completion of the trilogy has occasioned this salute to her songwriting which has been prolific: More than 3000 songs including such chart-busters as I Will Always Love You.

Taking its title from her 35-year-old album of the same name Just Because I'm a Woman includes some of the finest, most sympathetic and diverse women singers and interpreters around paying tribute to Dolly's assertive and often uncompromising lyrics: Sinead O'Connor, Norah Jones (at home on the title track to the first of the trilogy albums), Joan Osborne with a wistful Do I Ever Cross Mind, Emmylou Harris, funky Me'Shell N'Degeocello on Two Doors Down, Melissa Etheridge (with a slightly menacing I Will Always Love You) and Kasey Chambers.

New name Mindy Smith delivers a fine version of the anxious Jolene.

It's a strong collection and reinforces the emotional depth of Parton's songs.

(Shock)