The essential Mary Chapin Carpenter

Of course its essential to us as Mary Chapin Carpenter has our favourite voice in the whole world. Yeah we've been fans of her since we were 18, and thats a long time ago. The Berlin Wall was still up (just) for a start. So this is a compilation of the Columbia years, her older material up until the mid-90s and there are some seriously good songs on here.

The wonderful country-rock of "Quittin' time" for example, a song thats never grown old to these ears despite being listened to like millions of times. The beautiful "Long way home" with its simple yet effective message. "Halley comes to Jackson" is also a terrific song, and its a song about Halley's Comet no less!

There are a couple of songs that are probably missing but thats the same with any compilation covering a long career and a hatful of albums. But its a great album and is indeed essential. But we could have told you that for decades.