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Gold
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Barnes and Noble
Gold
Current price: $23.99
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Tall, charismatic, and eschewing rustic hillbilly stage outfits in favor of sleek, tailored Nudie suits,
was
music's first true superstar, and he was more than aware that a little motion on-stage drove the ladies crazy. But it is
' songwriting that has ensured his legacy more than anything, and his songs -- which mixed hillbilly elements with
and
, all with a firm grasp of how to shade in some
techniques -- crossed over regularly to the
charts, and have continued to hold up well even into the 21st century. Songs like
which has a spare, poetic structure so efficient it could be a haiku, and
which manages to be funny, ironic, and prophetically frightening all at once, don't happen by accident, and show an awareness of craft that has a good deal more in common with
than it does
. This two-disc overview of
' career includes his classic
singles from 1947 to 1952, a handful of haunting acoustic demos (which show him to be a quite capable acoustic guitarist), a couple of his
cuts, and a half-dozen or so live spots from the Grand Ole Opry (in 1950) and Health & Happiness (in 1949) radio shows. Thankfully it includes none of the string-sweetened overdubbed versions that proliferated after
' death, and given the number of dubious and rather thrown-together
collections on the market,
earns trust points for being both thorough and tasteful. ~ Steve Leggett