Coal Miner's Daughter: A Tribute to Loretta Lynn (Sony, 2010)

If country icon Loretta Lynn's music will be remembered for anything, it's that she gave women a voice through her lyrics while empowering them through so many of her songs. It's only fitting that so many current female singers who have carried a controversial cross of their own with songs of empowerment are among the artists lending their talents to this 12-song collection of Lynn's best-known tunes.

Carrie Underwood unleashed her own female fury with Before He Cheats and does Lynn proud on the anti-pop anthem You're Lookin' at Country. LeAnn Womack polishes her country pipes to perfection as she shines on the straight-from-the-barroom I'm a Honky Tonk Girl, while Redneck Woman Gretchen Wilson kicks off the disc with the defiant Don't Come Home a Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind).

Alan Jackson and Martina McBride (whose Independence Day set off a firestorm in the early 1990s) are dead ringers for Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn's 1973 cross-border southern love romp Lousiana Woman, Mississippi Man.

Lucinda Williams, Reba McEntire, the White Stripes, Kid Rock, Faith Hill and Steve Earle and Alison Moorer all turn in special performances of Lynn classics with musical assists from the likes of Vince Gill, Ranger Doug Green, Buddy Miller, Greg Leisz and Stuart Duncan.

And Lynn also shares the microphone with Sheryl Crow and Miranda Lambert - two women who've both fueled a few musical fires - on her autobiographical Coal Miner's Daughter.

So many tribute albums have the best of intentions, but seldom have the results been as convincing as this nod to Loretta Lynn.