Ray Stevens - Iconic Songs Of The 20th Century (The Soundtrack Of Our Lives) - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Copland / Marks - Rodeo / 4 Piano Blues [COMPACT DISCS] date 05/07/1997

2014 3X CD comprehensive anthology of Red Foley's best-loved & most successful recordings circa 1944-1959. Foley was one of the most important and influential personalities in country music in the two decades following World War II, not only racking up a remarkable string of hits records, but also becoming a major radio and TV personality, his smooth and polished performances helping to take the music to the mass audience of middle America. He is reputed to have sold over 25 million records, and was instrumental in having the music dubbed country rather than hillbilly. His style was by no means pure country and crossed over into the middle ground, as wells as R&B, boogie and rockabilly, as well as gospel music, several of his hits having a religious flavor his InchPeace in the ValleyInch was a million-selling country gospel hit in 1951. This collection comprises all 62 of the country and pop hits he had from the inception of the Billboard country charts in 1944 through to his final Top 30 entry in 1959 he had just four minor chart entries thereafter. It includes all his hit duets with Ernest Tubb, Kitty Wells and his daughter Betty Foley, and features twelve No. 1's with just about every track a Top 10 hit.

Certainly there is nothing else in the Country Music canon quite like Rex Allen Jr..'s InchToday's GenerationInch. Promoted upon it's in 1970 as Inch Underground CountryInch, it is an album both ornate and very listenable. But no amount of adornment with electric sitars, melotrons and harpsichords can disguise the fact that this is also a howl of pure, neglected, post-adolescent angs. Obsessed with mortality, guilt, conformity, the Vietnam war and drug experimentation, Rex was clearly at a InchtroubledInch juncture in his life. Imagine the Tibetan Book of the Dead as voiced with all the gothic undertones and crooner inflections of a southern Scott Walker and then interpreted by A-list Nasville session players. Remastered in 2008 from the original master tapes. Deluxe packaging, 24 page color booklet with exclusive notes, interviews and rare photos etc.