Posts Tagged ‘Columbia’

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Paul Simon: Paul Simon

Thursday, August 4th, 2011

Paul Simon sets out on a brilliant solo career

Though not technically Paul Simon’s solo debut – that honor goes to the acoustic performances he recorded for 1965’s The Paul Simon Songbook – this first post-Simon & Garfunkel album does represent the true beginnings of Simon’s massive success as a solo artist. Released in 1972, it came two years after Simon & Garfunkel bowed out with the Grammy winning Bridge Over Troubled Water, and the same year as the duo’s greatest hits album topped the chart. Simon’s re-debut was a strong artistic statement that was both commercially successful and the seedbed for experimentation and growth that would mark his solo career. The album opens with the reggae-inspired hit single “Mother and Child Reunion,” and along with the Latin influences of “Me and Julio Down By the School Yard” and haunting Andean instrumental breaks in “Duncan,” the melting pot of styles predicted the wealth of world music Simon would fold into his music.

At 32, Simon had matured from the sharp, at times bitter, worldview of his twenties. The difficulty of Simon & Garfunkel’s end had given way to the freedom of a solo act, and there’s a sense of renewed discovery in his characters and lyrical forms. The wayward “Duncan” recounts the education of a small-town fisherman’s son into a clear-eyed world traveler, while the fragmentary allusions of “Mother and Child Reunion” are surprisingly open-ended and poetically opaque. Simon’s marriage with his wife was apparently following his professional partnership with Garfunkel into dissolution, providing grist for “Everything Put Together Falls Apart,” “Run That Body Down” and “Congratulations.” Simon’s voice never sounded better, he asserts his picking talent on “Armistice Day” and “Peace Like a River” and vamps happily behind violinist Stephane Grappelli on the swing instrumental “Hobo’s Blues.”

Producer Roy Halee, as he’d done for Bridge Over Troubled Water, surrounded his artist with friendly, talented and inventive musicians. Together they crafted spacious, highly sympathetic arrangements that had the delicacy of an acoustic band, the depth of a jazz combo and the power of well-placed moments of electric guitar. Columbia/Legacy’s 2011 reissue reuses Bill Inglot’s remastering and the three bonus tracks of Rhino’s 2004 reissue, including solo acoustic-guitar demos of “Me and Julio Down by the School Yard” and “Duncan,” and an alternate version of “Paranoia Blues.” Legacy’s traded out Rhino’s digipack for a standard jewel case and an 8-page booklet of lyrics and pictures. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Mel Tillis: The Best of Mel Tillis – The Columbia Years

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

The missing chapter of Mel Tillis’ singing career

A decade before Mel Tillis found 1970s fame as a singer on Kapp and MGM, he recorded a number of terrific, often adventurous sides for Columbia. Tillis had been writing hits for years charting sides with Webb Pierce, Bobby Bare, Stonewall Jackson and others, but his own singles, including “The Violet and a Rose” and “Sawmill,” found only limited success. Legacy’s 24-track collection, a digital download reissue of Collectors’ Choice’ out-of-print CD, is a treasure-trove of Tillis originals, many co-written with Wayne Walker. Many of these titles were hits for other singers, including eight for Pierce, and while it’s a treat to find Tillis’ original versions of “Honky Tonk Song,” “Holiday for Love” and “A Thousand Miles Ago,” it’s even more interesting to hear the range of styles he tried out. There are Louvin-inspired harmonies inn “Georgia Town Blues,” a twangy proto-rock guitar in the tall tale “Loco Weed,” a calypso beat for “Party Girl,” and a cover of “Hearts of Stone” (which was also recorded by Elvis Presley, Connie Francis and Red Foley) that has wailing sax and Cameo-Parkway styled backing vocals. Tillis’ lack of hits at Columbia no doubt contributed to his stylistic flexibility, and though he sounds most deeply at home on honky-tonk sides “Heart Over Mind” (a hit for Ray Price) and “Tupelo County Jail,” he remained engaged and enthusiastic when singing the Johnny Horton styled historical tale “Ten Thousand Drums” and teen tunes like “It’s So Easy.” Tillis would found tremendous fame as a singer and personality in the 1970s, but these earlier sides for Columbia show convincingly that his success in the spotlight should have come much sooner. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Rosanne Cash: The Essential Rosanne Cash

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

Career- and label-spanning summary of a second-generation legend

For an artist of her stature, Rosanne Cash has been the subject of surprisingly thin compilation releases. Several 10- and 12-track single disc collections have been issued, but only Raven’s imported 21-track Blue Moons and Broken Hearts and to a lesser extent Legacy’s earlier Very Best Of really dug beyond the hits. That list is now expanded with this two-disc, thirty-six track collection, featuring a song list picked and programmed by the artist herself. The set opens with “Can I Still Believe in You,” from her 1978 self-titled Germany-only debut, and closes over thirty years later with a trio of tracks drawn from 2009’s The List. The latter selections include a cover of Mickey Newbury’s “Sweet Memories” previously available only on the Borders Books version of The List.

Included are all eleven of Cash’s country chart-toppers, seventeen of her twenty country chart entries, and tracks drawn from all twelve studio albums she’s recorded for Ariola, Columbia and Capitol/EMI. There are augumented with bonuses drawn from earlier antholgies, and duets from albums by Vince Gill (“If It Weren’t For Him”) and Rodney Crowell (“Its Such a Small World”). The bulk of the collection is devoted to Cash’s tenure with Columbia, with the second half of disc two stepping through her more recent work for Capitol/EMI. These latter tracks find Cash reinventing herself from a country hit maker to a writer, album auteur and Grammy nominee. This plays out as a worthy soundtrack for Cash’s recent memoir, Composed, provides a terrific overview of her hits and a useful guide to the rich album tracks in her catalog.

Though Cash isn’t prone to complimenting her debut, the strength of her songwriter’s voice is evident from the start. It may be difficult at mid-life to fully reconnect with the yet-to-be-fulfilled longing one felt at twenty-three, but the early songs provide telling snapshots of a young writer who was already able to express her soul in words. A year later, on 1979’s Right or Wrong, Cash sounds more confident, singing as an equal with Bobby Bare on “No Memories Hangin’ Round,” and producer Rodney Crowell deftly blended roots with radio-friendly touches. Her follow-up, Seven Year Ache, broke her career wide open with an album and title track that each topped the country chart; the single also crossed over, stopping just shy of the pop top twenty.

Cash’s songs and vocals, and Crowell’s production fit easily across a variety of styles, including pop ballads, twangy roots, countrypolitan jazz, and horn-lined soul. Several of the hits, particularly those in the mid-80s, tended to crystalline guitars, big piano and booming drums, but Cash also topped the chart with the locomotive rhythm of “My Baby Thinks He’s a Train,” the Brill Building soul of John Hiatt’s “The Way We Make a Broken Heart,” and most endearingly, an acoustic shuffle of “Tennessee Flat Top Box” that recalled her dad’s early days at Sun.

Cash’s introductory notes provide a peek inside the discoveries that occur when an artist anthologizes her own catalog – thinking back to the places and people that influenced one’s work, and wondering who they were when a particular song was written or performed. It’s hard to tell if the songs provide mileage markers for her life, or her life provides the events that demarcate the phases of her career; a bit of each, it seems. The set’s affectionate and perceptive liner notes are written by Rodney Crowell, to whom Cash was married and who produced her first five albums. The booklet adds detailed session notes, including chart information and personnel, and fleshes out this terrific overview of a second-generation country legend. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Neil Diamond: The Bang Years 1966-1968

Thursday, May 19th, 2011

The young Neil Diamond graduates from songwriter to performer

Before Neil Diamond became a singing superstar he was a songwriter, but even as a songwriter he wasn’t an instant success. He spent his teen years tramping from one publishing house to another, occasionally selling a song against royalties for hits that never came. It wasn’t until an unsuccessful year on the staff of Leiber & Stoller’s Trio Music and, ironically, a transition to recording, that Diamond found his voice as a songwriter. He first charted with Jay and the Americans’ “Sunday and Me,” and hit his commercial stride with the Monkees chart-toppers “I’m a Believer” and “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You.” Other songs in his catalog found favor among British Invasion acts that included Cliff Richard and Lulu.

Diamond’s earlier attempts at a performing career (with Dual in 1959 and Columbia in 1963) had gone nowhere, but his signing to Bang in 1966 unlocked his songwriting talent and paired him with producers Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich. It was during this initial run at Bang that Diamond proved himself a talented songwriter, unique vocalist and commanding hit maker. His first seven singles reached the chart, six making the top 20; for good measure he extended the chart run with “Red, Red Wine” and a soul-power cover of Gary U.S. Bonds’ “New Orleans.” Several of his B-sides, including “The Boat That I Row” and “Do It” were as good as the A’s, and cover versions of “Red Rubber Ball,” “Monday, Monday” and “La Bamba” were blessed by the Diamond touch.

Barry and Greenwich (who can be heard singing backing vocals) hired the cream of New York’s session players, and together with arranger Artie Butler and engineers Brooks Arthur, Tom Dowd and Phil Ramone, cranked out these brilliant capsules of AM radio pop. Diamond would go on to even greater chart and performance glory, but the seeds of his success can be heard in the craft of these twenty-three sides, particularly his eighteen original compositions. The mono masters are housed in a tri-fold digipack with a 20-page booklet that features pictures and revealing liner notes by Diamond himself. For the next phase in Diamond’s career, check his mid-period work on Play Me: The Complete Uni Studio Recordings… Plus! [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Neil Diamond’s Home Page

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Simon and Garfunkel: Bridge Over Troubled Water (40th Anniversary Edition)

Tuesday, March 8th, 2011

Brilliant video additions to Simon & Garfunkel’s studio swan song

Simon and Garfunkel’s fifth and final studio album marked their commercial peak. Though many fans find the previous album, Bookends, to be the apex of the duo’s artistic creativity, it’s hard to think of another pop act that exited with a success comparable to this album and its title track. Despite Garfunkel’s initial reservation, “Bridge Over Troubled Water” made good on Simon’s feeling that it was the best song he’d ever written, topping the Hot 100 for six weeks and winning Grammy awards for song and record of the year. Though the recording is deeply tied to Garfunkel’s brilliant vocal performance, the composition spawned dozens of successful covers, including Aretha Franklin’s Grammy-winning R&B chart-topper and Buck Owens’ Top 10 single. In the 1970s it became a staple in Elvis Presley’s stage show, and cover versions continue to be recorded to this day, with a live version from the 2010 Grammys having charted, and the television show Glee having featured the song the same year.

But the title song is far from the album’s only jewel. With Garfunkel away for the better part of 1969 filming Catch 22, Simon was left to work alone, and apparently consider a post-Garfunkel career. “The Only Living Boy in New York City” and “Why Don’t You Write Me” are easily heard to be contemplations of Simon’s isolation, while “So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright” includes the telling lyric “so long Frank Lloyd Wright, all of the nights we harmonized ‘til dawn,” an allusion seemingly tied to Garfunkel’s study of architecture at Columbia. The seeds of Simon’s multicultural solo career can be heard in the Peruvian flute of “El Condor Pasa (If I Could),” broad rhythm instrumentation of “Cecilia,” and reggae styling of “Why Don’t You Write Me.” The album topped the chart, won Grammys for engineering, arranging and Album of Year, and spun off four hit singles.

This CD/DVD set marks the 40th anniversary of the album’s January 1970 release, and combines the original eleven tracks with two hours of video material. The DVD includes the duo’s rare 1969 CBS television special, Songs of America, and a new documentary, The Harmony Game: The Making of Bridge Over Troubled Water. The special, aired only once on November 30, 1969, has been bootlegged many times, but never before officially reissued. At the time of its airing its social and political viewpoints – particularly its explicit anti-Vietnam war messages – caused sponsor Bell Atlantic to pull out. But with backing from CBS (the same network that had fired the Smothers Brothers earlier in the year), the program found a new sponsor (Alberto Culver, the makers of Alberto VO5) and was aired uncut.

Both video features are extraordinary documents. The 1969 special, originally shot on film and pieced together from two different sources, is a post-Woodstock look at America in which Simon and Garfunkel seem to be trying to explain the younger generation to adult viewers. They surface the questions and doubts on the minds of many young people in 1969, starting with the incalculable loss of the decade’s heroes – JFK, MLK and RFK – and reflections on the brutality of poverty and the activism of the farm workers, UAW and Poor People’s March. First-time director (and future famous actor) Charles Grodin skillfully mixed compelling newsreel imagery with voiceovers and interviews, and interwove performance footage and behind-the-scenes shots of the duo at work. Simon and Garfunkel are spied working out arrangements of new songs, rehearsing their stage band and recording in the studio.

The making-of documentary repeats some moments from the ’69 special, but adds context with discussions of the program’s creation and controversies. There’s additional concert footage and contemporary interviews with Simon, Garfunkel, their manager, Mort Lewis, their engineer/producer, Roy Halee, and two of the studio players (drummer Hal Blaine and bassist Joe Osborn) featured on the album.. The conversation with Halee is particularly illuminating, as he describes how the duo’s studio sound was produced, and provides specifics of the album’s tracks. The song-by-song discussion reveals numerous details on personnel (Fred Carter Jr., for example, played guitar on “The Boxer,” Joe Osborn played an 8-string bass on “Only Living Boy in New York City,” and Larry Knechtel developed the gospel piano on “Bridge Over Troubled Water”), recording locations, production techniques, and brightly highlights the creativity everyone concerned poured into the album.

Missing from the CD are the bonus tracks (“Feuilles-O” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water (Demo Take 6)”) available on earlier releases, as well as the oft-bootlegged session track “Cuba Si, Nixon No,” but the video disc is priceless and a fantastic bonus to celebrate this album’s anniversary. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Simon & Garfunkel’s Home Page

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Johnny Cash: Bootleg Vol. II – From Memphis to Hollywood

Thursday, March 3rd, 2011

‘50s and ‘60s rarities, demos and radio performances

Five years ago the archive of recordings left behind at the House of Cash was cracked open for the two-disc Personal File, which itself has been reissued as Bootleg Volume 1: Personal File in parallel with this second two-disc helping. Where the previous volume focused on Cash’s mid-70s home recordings, volume two reaches back further to explore Cash’s 1950s beginnings in Memphis and his transition to country superstardom in the 1960s. Along the way the set collects live performances, continuity and commercial pitches (for his employer Home Equipment Company) from Cash’s first radio appearance, on KWEM in 1955, mid-50s Sun demos and rarities, and a deep cache of 1960s studio recordings. Eleven of these tracks have never been officially released in the U.S., and fifteen, including eleven Sun-era demos, have never been officially released anywhere.

As on the earlier volume, Cash lays down his demos without the fire of master takes, but even when just feeling out his songs or recording them as a record of copyright, his authority and magnetism as a performer shines through. The mid-50s demos are sung to an acoustic guitar, lending them the intimate and unguarded feel of Cash singing more for himself than an imagined audience. Alongside early demos of Cash classics (“I Walk the Line,” “Get Rhythm,” “Belshazzar”) are the rare, proto-rockabilly “You’re My Baby” and the wonderfully primitive “Rock and Roll Ruby.” Seven Sun outtakes capture Cash’s classic tic-tac rhythm, as well as false starts and a rough guitar solo that finds the group seeking the groove of “Big River.” Cash’s commanding baritone is magnified by the terrific atmosphere of Sun’s production sound.

The 1960s recordings are more polished, waxed in Nashville for Columbia, with a band, backing chorus and at times in stereo. The tracks include non-album singles, B-sides and demos, including several proposed theme songs for television and film. Cash’s “Johnny Yuma Theme” fits with his many other Western-themed songs, but went unused for ABC’s The Rebel, as did a title theme for Cash’s 1961 film Five Minutes to Live, and most surprising of all (that is, for its existence, rather than it’s lack of use), a Western-tinged title song Cash proposed for the James Bond film Thunderball. Additional treats include a vibraphone led rendition of the nineteenth century “There’s a Mother Always Waiting,” a duet with Bonanza’s Lorne Greene on “Shifting, Whispering Sands,” and a solo cover of Dylan’s “One Too Many Mornings,” all previously unreleased in the U.S.

Cash’s interest in folk music is heard in a selection of traditional material, chiming twelve-string guitar, and the elegy of “The Folk Singer.” His powerful recitations underscore the gravity of “On the Line” and “Roll Call,” and his humor shines on the wry “Foolish Questions.” Disc two closes with Cash’s original demo of “Six White Horses,” recorded before his brother Tommy made it a hit, and the full length demo of his television show’s “Come Along and Ride This Train.” The set includes a 24-page booklet filled with period photos and liner notes by Ashley Kahn. Producer Gregg Geller has done a superb job of selecting and sequencing the material, drawing an arc from Cash’s earliest radio performance, through his development as a songwriter, singer and one-of-a-kind American stylist. Vic Anesini’s mastering ties it neatly together into a surprisingly consistent listening experience. With 57 tracks clocking in at two hours, this is a rich and fulfilling treat for Johnny Cash fans. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Johnny Cash’s Home Page

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The Highwaymen: Essential

Saturday, October 30th, 2010

The intertwined creativity of Waylon, Willie, Cash and Kristofferson

Though Waylon, Willie, Cash and Kristofferson recorded three full albums as The Highwaymen, the foursome had much richer musical relationships than the purpose-built quartet dates. Legacy’s 2-disc Essential set documents both their official collaborations under the Highwayman moniker, and the duets and covers that found these artists returning to one another over the course of their careers. In addition to seven songs from the Highwaymen’s three albums, this thirty track collection includes solos and duets drawn from the artists’ original albums, television and stage performances (including tracks from the Johnny Cash Show and VH1’s Storytellers), and soundtracks. Among the riches are several covers of Kristofferson’s songs, including Nelson’s 2008 rendering of “Moment of Forever.”

The one previously unreleased track is a live version of Guy Clark’s “Desperados Waiting for a Train” recorded by the foursome at the 1993 Farm Aid concert, but the set’s real strength is its telling of the back-story through cuts sourced from twenty-five different albums. The collection paints a picture of four strong-willed, artistically-rich musical icons who found equal-strength partners in one another, and with whom they could collaborate without compromise. Their shared musical roots (neatly summarized in the trio of songs “The Night Hank Williams Came to Town,” “If You Don’t Like Hank Williams” and “Are You Sure Hank Done it this Way”) and hard-won artistic integrity bound them together like few other superstars, and the musical legacy they left as compadres is winningly excerpted in this set. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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Blue Oyster Cult: Setlist – The Very Best Of

Thursday, October 14th, 2010

Live tracks from 1974-1981 with one previously unreleased

The Legacy division of Sony continues to explore new ways to keep the CD relevant. Their Playlist series was the first out of the gate with eco-friendly packaging that used 100% recycled cardboard, no plastic, and on-disc PDFs in place of paper booklets. Their new Setlist series follows the same path of a single disc that provides an aficionado’s snapshot of an artist’s catalog. In this case the anthologies turn from the studio to the stage, pulling together tracks from an artist’s live repertoire, generally all previously released, but in a few cases adding previously unreleased items. As with the Playlist collections, the Setlist discs aren’t greatest hits packages; instead, they forgo some obvious catalog highlights to give listeners a chance to hear great, lesser-known songs from the artist’s stage act.

Inexplicably, Blue Oyster Cult’s entry in the series doesn’t include the booklet on disc. Instead, the cardboard slipcase provides a URL from which the booklet (as a PDF) can be viewed and downloaded. Once retrieved it provides liner notes from Lenny Kaye and detailed credits of the tracks’ origins. Many are pulled from the group’s previous live albums, On Your Feet Or On Your Knees, Some Enchanted Evening, Extraterrestrial Live, but the set also includes a promo-only version of “Godzilla” recorded in 1977, a 1981 take of “Flaming Telepaths” that was available on a British 12-inch single, and a previously unreleased 1979 version of “The Vigil” recorded in Berkeley, California. Taken together they provide a good view of the band’s live sound from their key years of 1974 through 1981.

BOC is a classic album-oriented rock band, placing only two singles on the Top 40 while scoring gold albums, minting FM turntable hits and turning itself into a solid arena draw. Their biggest single, “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” is included here in a 1981 performance, but it’s the album tracks and the hard-charging jams that really excite the crowd. Their music reflects a number of improvisational threads, including San Francisco and Southern rock, but with a touch of prog-rock changes and a heavy metallic edge. Fans of the band’s carefully crafted studio albums may find themselves bewildered by these elongated versions (there are some Tap-like moments here), but if the live rock album boom of the 1970s is your cup of tea, this is a good sampler of BOC’s stage charms. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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Johnny Cash: Setlist – The Very Best Of

Saturday, July 24th, 2010

Nice overview of Johnny Cash as a performer and entertainer

The Legacy division of Sony continues to explore new ways to keep the CD relevant. Their Playlist series was the first out of the gate with eco-friendly packaging that used 100% recycled cardboard, no plastic, and on-disc PDFs in place of paper booklets. Their new Setlist series follows the same path of a single disc that provides an aficionado’s snapshot of an artist’s catalog. In this case the anthologies turn from the studio to the stage, pulling together tracks from an artist’s live repertoire, generally all previously released, but in a few cases adding previously unreleased items. As with the Playlist collections, the Setlist discs aren’t greatest hits packages; instead, they forgo some obvious catalog highlights to give listeners a chance to hear great, lesser-known songs from the artist’s stage act.

Johnny Cash’s volume of Setlist features fourteen tracks drawn from only five years of performing, 1968-72, yet the range of venues and audiences shows off the breadth of Cash as a performer and entertainer. In addition to his two iconic live albums recorded at Folsom and San Quentin Prison, Cash also performed for down home audiences at the Ryman Auditorium and uptown city slickers at Madison Square Garden. He sang for Swedish prisoners and American presidents, and hosted a national television show that bridged hippies and squares. Everything here has been issued before, but unlike the full-concert albums and videos, this collection gives a sense of Cash’s universality, rather than the depth with which he connected to each specific audience.

The Folsom and San Quentin tracks (“Folsom Prison Blues,” “I Got a Woman,” “Wreck of the Old 97,” “I Walk the Line” and “Big River”) are the most familiar – and if they’re not, you’re recommended to the full albums and videos [1 2]. Less famous is Cash’s performance of his original “What is Truth” at the White House in 1970. He shook off Nixon’s request for “Okie From Muskogee” and “Welfare Cadillac,” and challenged the sitting president with songs of the underclass. Cash seems nearly exhausted by the cultural conflicts of the times as he asks for understanding of the young people who would soon inherit the country. Cash’s humor and his chemistry with wife June are shown in a warm 1969 medley of “Darlin’ Companion,” “If I Were a Carpenter,” and “Jackson” recorded at the home of the Grand Ol’ Opry for his television show.

Cash sings his Christian faith in a pair of gospel songs, but it’s the firmness with which he stands by the world’s underdogs that really shows his beliefs in practice; every time he steps onto the stage he earns his Man in Black nickname. Cash’s best-known live song, “A Boy Named Sue,” which he debuted at his 1969 San Quentin concert, is heard here in a 1972 performance at Sweden’s Österåker Prison. By this point the song had been a big hit, and so the audience doesn’t have the hysterical reaction of the earlier recording, but Cash still sings it with the same sly smile as the single. The collection’s tracks are thoughtfully selected and sequenced, with tracks from different concerts flowing impressively. This is no substitute for the full concert recordings, but it’s a terrific single-disc introduction to Johnny Cash in his performing prime. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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Dixie Chicks: Playlist – The Very Best of the Dixie Chicks

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

Short overview of game-changing country trio’s career

Whether or not Natalie Maines’ opinions give you heartburn, there’s no denying her arrival in the Dixie Chicks launched the group to unparalleled commercial and artistic success. With her lead vocals and her bandmates’ harmonies and instrumental chops, the group cut a new template for commercial country radio, finding favor with both the mainstream and traditionalist crowds. All was peaches and cream until Maines’ outspoken criticism of the Bush administration placed them at odds with the Nashville establishment and many of the band’s fans. But in the face of a country radio backlash, the group stuck to their guns, found favor with the pop buying public, and netted their fourth consecutive country album Grammy – and their first Album of the Year – with the unapologetic Taking the Long Way.

This twelve song collection includes tracks from the four studio albums recorded with Maines’ as lead vocalist, and skips over the group’s three earlier releases. It follows the form of earlier Playlist releases by combining a selection of hits with album tracks that the artist has selected as representative of their career. That means most of the Dixie Chicks’ sixteen Top 10 hits are omitted in favor of album tracks (all twelve tracks have been previously issued and are readily available on the group’s regular releases), including the concert favorite “Sin Wagon” and a poignant cover of Patty Griffin’s “Let Him Fly.” The chronological set plays quite well, giving listeners a good helping of the Chicks’ vocal and instrumental talents, and shows how they straddled the line between rootsy twang and polished radio country with their cannily selected cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide.” The Dixie Chicks deftly bridged their country home base with their pop influences, magnifying, rather than losing, the potency of each.

These songs say as much about the group members’ lives as their careers, following the turbulence of divorces and marriages, professional daring, and settled family lives. The disc is delivered in an all-cardboard folder, with a digital booklet that includes six highly-styled photographs, liner notes, production/writing/chart credits, an interactive album discography (that conveniently links to Sony BMG’s online store), and a pair of desktop wallpapers. What’s here is compelling, but what’s missing is essential to really telling the group’s story; a recitation of the group’s hits can be put together from digital download services, but at a cost that’s likely to keep many waiting for a more definitive greatest hits collection or career anthology. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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