The pairing of
Compass Point
and
I've Got Something to Say
is the oddest of the two-fers issued by
Bear Family
as volume five in their
David Allan Coe
Columbia
retrospective. On his ninth and tenth albums for
,
Coe
was still looking for respect from radio program directors in Nash Vegas and nationwide -- and wasn't getting it, despite the ace production team of
Billy Sherrill
Ron Bledsoe
.
is the most reflective of
's albums in the sense that it seemingly constantly looks back to the previous, and most of that isn't pretty; in fact, it's full of regret and remorse, but the determination to transcend as well. The percussion tracks are straight out of
Jimmy Buffett
's classic records and the atmospherics are pure
Sherrill
-- phased guitars and accordions and fiddles shimmering in and out of the mix. Two of the finest songs on the album are
"Gone (Like)"
"Loving Her (Will Make You Lose Your Mind)."
is
's star-guest album -- a blatant attempt for radio airplay (it says so in the liner notes) that doesn't work at all. From the re-recording of
"This Bottle (In My Hand),"
with
George Jones
(given that this was recorded in 1980, when
Jones
was a recently recovering alcoholic, it's tasteless) to the re-recording of
"Take This Job and Shove It,"
done as a reaction to the film of the same name, the songs are more boisterous than inspired.
"Take It Easy Rider,"
Guy Clark
, sounds more confused and lost than anything else, and
"Hank Williams Junior-Junior"
the Allman Brothers
'
Dickey Betts
Kris Kristofferson
is a bad -- no, make that terrible --
novelty
song. This is the only case in which it is too bad that a very decent outing like
was paired with such a poor one. ~ Thom Jurek