Rating:
Genre:
Country
Release Date: 07/30/1991
Run Time: 45:34
Rhino's 1991 collection
The Best of George Jones (1955-1967) covers his recordings for
Starday,
Mercury,
United Artists, and
Musicor -- in other words, it's the
Pappy Daily years, featuring every label
Pappy and
the Possum recorded for before
Jones severed ties with his producer/manager/mentor and moved to
Epic and
Billy Sherrill's luxurious productions in 1971. This is the foundation of
George Jones' career, with his wildest
honky tonk and sweetest
ballads, and many of his most iconic songs --
"Why Baby Why," "White Lightning," "The Window Up Above," "Tender Years," "She Thinks I Still Care," "The Race Is On," "Walk Through This World With Me" -- among them. This is when
Jones perfected his heart-wrenching
ballad style -- still the standard all
country singers are measured by -- and when he sang the purest hardcore
honky tonk, dabbled in
bluegrass with duet partner
Melba Montgomery, dipped his toes into
pop crossover with
Gene Pitney (on the delirious
"I've Got Five Dollars and It's Saturday Night"), and revelled in his love for
novelties and silly songs, a taste he never lost in his entire career.
Through it's expertly chosen 18 tracks, this
Best of George Jones touches on all these sounds, as it offers an abundance of
country Top Ten hits, along with a couple other songs that might not have climbed as far on the charts but help fill out
Jones' musical portrait. Given the size of the collection, it should be no surprise that it doesn't contain all of his hits from these four labels -- it skews toward the
Starday and
Mercury sides, with five selections from
UA and four from
Musicor -- but it is a little surprising that it stops seemingly arbitrarily in 1967,since his first
Epic hit arrived in 1972, leaving five years undocumented. Some great songs were recorded during that time -- most notably
"A Good Year for the Roses" -- and while it would have been nice to have them here, it's also true that during those five years he began to shift toward the
ballad-heavy style that distinguished his
Epic records, so they're more of a piece with that era. The 12 years covered here constitute his first golden period, when he could and did sing anything, and they're presented perfectly here. Combine this disc with
Epic's
Anniversary, and you have the essential
George Jones on CD -- and two discs that are just slightly better than
Epic/Legacy's very fine 1994 double-disc set,
The Spirit of Country.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
;)
Listen
