Jazz fans sometimes denigrate country music, but just remember that Bob Wills swung harder than anyone in the 40s, Sonny Rollins’ best album covers C&W classics and Bill Frisell has made a career sounding like a sideman at the Grand Ol’ Opry.
Besides, the music on this wonderful four disc set, no matter who the vocalist is, has some of the best rhythm sections around. These hootenanny guys are a hoot! And, if the goal of a true jazz artist is to “tell your story,” well the likes of George Jones, Patsy Cline, Jimmy Dean, Ray Price and Buck Owens are the hillbilly versions of Gershwin and Berlin.
The themes? Well, you get a mixture of the classics of family, cheatin’, love found, love lost and love of country. The two timing themes can be either hilarious as on Leroy Van Dyke’s “Walk On By” or the angst ridden “Go On Home.” Broken hearts are by the glass full as on “She Thinks I Still Care” by George Jones” and of course Patsy Cline’s classic “Crazy.” Stories of heroes are delivered by Jimmy Dean on “Big Bad John” and the tribute to JFK on “PT 109” while Hank Snow gives the ultimate travelogue on “I’ve Been Everywhere.” Johnny Cash takes you to his world of black on “In the Jailhouse Now” and Burl Ives is richly avuncular on “A Little Bitty Tear.”
The aspect that makes this collection so attractive is that you know what’s coming; these themes have been reworked and revised over the past 60 years ad nauseum. But here, they are fresh and new. You can feel the difference.