But if you've only got two discs to work with, a fair view of Jones career means a nearly unbroken string of slow weepers and mid-tempo duets about love gone bad, going bad, or doomed to go bad someday soon. And indeed, of Essential's forty tracks, about thirty are of this ilk, and it's worth it. On slow songs, Jones' rich tone and unique way of pronouncing lyrics so that the vowels come out rounded and full are presented to their best advantage, and even though the entire second disc is twenty slow ballads right in a row, Jones' superhuman talents make sure that every song stands on its own as a fully realized little story.

However, there are a couple areas where Essential falls down. Most importantly, it appears that the compilers weren't able to secure the rights to any of Jones' sides recorded for the Musicor label. Although that era of his career, covering about 1965-1971, was one of his most uneven, it's also an era that contains several stone classics. Any truly essential collection absolutely must include "A Good Year For The Roses" and "Walk Through This World With Me," to name my two favorites But since these songs aren't here - and believe me, I'm not just picking nits - this collection isn't the only George Jones you'll ever need.

The collection also includes only three songs from the nearly twenty albums Jones has recorded since 1986. In fairness, I understand the need to bias a collection of this kind toward the hits (and indeed, the collection is thick with number-one hits), but in my opinion three songs over twenty years is hardly a fair representation of Jones' often respectable output in that time.

The Essential George Jones is pretty good, and almost even good enough. But since it skips right over his Musicor years (not to mention most of the last twenty years), it falls a little short in being the only Possum you'll ever need.