GRETCHEN Peters started off as a Nashville songwriter to the stars: George Strait, Martina McBride, Trisha Yearwood, Shania Twain, Bryan Adams, Etta James et al.
Here's your chance to hear her outshine them on her own versions of her country and roots pearls, from last year's murder ballad Blackbirds and When All You Got Is AHammer, back to The Secret Of Life, Independence Day and most beautiful of all, On A Bus To St Cloud.
Peters has always written with uncanny nous for just the right domestic detail and with bittersweet maturity in her storytelling.
"Essential" collections don't always live up to the billing, but Peters wanted to represent "the absolute right-down-to-the-bone expressions of myself" and rewards her devotees with her previously unreleased ballad with Adams, When You Love Someone, plus her fragile interpretation of John Lennon's Love and work tape recordings of Blackbirds with Ben Glover and, in particular, Five Minutes that affirm why she was inducted in the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2014.
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