It's been a long time coming, and it's worth the wait. Mercury has finally released a definitive box set covering the Queen of Blue-Eyed Soul's entire career, from a home recording of a ragtime medley to a version of "Someone to Watch Over Me" cut for a tv commercial that is understood to be the last recording Dusty Springfield ever made. Kudos to Mike Gill and Paul Howes for taking on the daunting task of selecting just two to four tracks from each project Dusty was involved in, and for being so generous with the material from the 70s and 80s that hadn't made it to CD until now. Every hit is here and all the key LP tracks, as well as cuts recorded with other artists and one-offs. Listening to the box as a whole, I'm struck by the sheer volume of great material Dusty lent her unique, inimitable, totally moving voice to throughout her career. For every superb overlooked or unreleased cut, like her takes on Jaye P. Morgan's "Closet Man," Janis Ian's "In the Winter," Melissa Manchester's "Home to Myself" and Peter Allen's "Quiet Please There's A Lady on Stage," there are three or four equally excellent tracks that necessarily had to be left off this set. This will have to do until Bear Family exhumes the entire Dusty Springfield oeuvre for one of their own legendary 9 or 10 CD box sets. Until then, this is indispensable