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In 2000, MCA re-issued all three Walsh-era James Gang albums in remastered format. Unfortunately, the remasters turned out to be particularly lackluster, suffering greatly in the clarity department.

However, the previous year, the German Repertoire label released this 2CD set, with their own dedicated remastering. All the muddy MCA sound is eliminated; the percussion is clear, the bass thunders and Walsh is there in all his distorted glory, with the dynamic range of the original albums perfectly intact.

Unfortunately, this set has the abbreviated (5:40) "Bomber Medley", which is an enormous sore point with JG fans. However, there's no other JG CD where The Bomber sounds this good; when A/B-compared to the MCA disc, the MCA version literally sounds like there's a heavy cloth over the speakers.

Repertoire allotted a major portion of the set to the non-Walsh JG lineups; only 14 of the 40 total tracks are Walsh-era material. On the second disc, 9 of the 19 Bolin-period tracks appear, also in far better audio than the never-remastered Atlantic "Bang" & "Miami" CD's.

I'm sure many JG fans will have their opinions over excluded tracks, but the selections were made with input from Jim Fox, who contributes a song-by-song historical synopsis of each in the booklet. There is also included probably the best essay on the history of the band of any JG CD ever released.

It's a shame that Repertoire didn't produce individual editions of the first three JG albums, because they would have blown away everything else available. Repertoire's logic was undoubtedly that since MCA and BGO both released each of the three JG/Walsh albums, there was no room in the market for a third set.

However, I've heard the MCA's & the BGO's, and just about every other JG CD; the Repertoire set towers above them all. Repertoire has been very aggressive over the past few years, often going head-to-head with Japanese mini-sleeve releases, again, with their own dedicated remastering, so perhaps they'll reconsider The James Gang in the future.

As for this set: While only half of the JG/Walsh tracks are here, no true JG's fan's collection is complete without it. You'll understand in the first 30 seconds of "Take A Look Around", track 1 on the first disc, of what you've been missing all these years.

This CD Compilation Is Great. It Includes The Popular & Deep Tracks Of All The James Gang Albums. I Am Satisfied With This Product!

Okay, perhaps I'm a bit biased being the second cousin of Jimmy Fox, but hear me out...

Back in the early 70's, Jim used to come visit us in California. I was just a kid and only knew of him as some Rock Musician who wore scraggly long hair and a bushy beard and who stunk like Patchuli Oil. He would bring us his records but because my father preferred Classical and mom listened exclusively to Neil Diamond, we were not exposed to the Greatness of the James Gang.

It wasn't until several of their songs became Hit's that I realized they were a serious Rock Band, and it wasn't until over a decade ago that I realized the magnitude of their talent. I can honestly say, I feel The James Gang is one of the most underrated bands of our generation.

When Joe Walsh left the band, unfortunately so did some of the fans and Record Exec's, causing The James Gang to lose their credibility. This was an unfortunate reality, and one that I think severely hurt their future.

If you give this album a chance, you won't be sorry. Every song is tight, every song is amazing, every song will take you back to a time when Rock was Real, not overproduced in a studio. We're talking Raw Talent, especially Jimmy on Drums, one of the best drummers to come out of the 70's.

This is a record that will leave you feeling Up and Happy..and you will undoubtedly agree that The James Gang should be inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
By far the best band to come out of Cleveland Ever!

A little James Gang goes a long way. Walsh's guitar work is always great, and the rest isn't bad. But after awhile it all starts to run together as a whole. The Walsh period was the, then, newest and most creative of course, and the rest either continues more of the same at best, or becomes bland at worst.

In an ipod world these songs might work better woven as part of a large 70's hard rock playlist so the songs remain fresher when the songs come on at random. The top ten (including Bomber, Funk 49, Walk Away and some others) could be their own short playlist/best of. Needless to say I can play all Zep or Who and it's all good, not so with this. I guess there's a reason classic rock stations play a few dozen of the former and two of the latter.

But it is great blues/hard rock with Walsh and passable blues rock without. Again, maybe an ipod playlist with JG, Cactus, Captain Beyond, (hard) Zep, Spooky Tooth, Faces, Free, and/or Humble Pie all the songs would be welcome. This collection on shuffle alone can get boring pretty fast.

....just what you want in a career-retrospective set like this one. Though the Gang were never my (or anybody else's) favorite, they had enough good moments to warrant this 2CD anthology, and all of them are here. Don't worry, Tommy Bolin fans aren't cheated as there's plenty of his material on hand (in my view, the Gang's single best album is BANG!). The chance to hear all the various lineups makes this a pretty cool historical document you can play air guitar to.

If there's some hyper-cool rarity missing from this collections, it must be SO hyper-cool that I don't miss it. This is a great, fun collection!

The James Gang were big around these parts (Eastern Ohio/Western PA) back when Joe Walsh was the guitar man. They played several times at the small college I went to. Great live band.
So now I'd like to buy the Joe Walsh era for my collection. According to
some reviewers, the MCA reissues of the first three studio albums are murky sounding. The Repetoire two disc best of is supposed to be sonically excellent, but there's only 14 cuts with Joe Walsh on guitar.
That's a shame. Because even though the band forged on after Joe left,
it was never the same.
Why Repetoire devoted 1-1/2 discs to the lineups post Walsh I can't understand. The choice is hard - murky sounding but complete 1st three discs, or insufficient but great sounding best of. Hmmmmm...
I cannot decide.

I can't believe anyone would EVER consider post Walsh in a James Gang compilation set. The 3 stars is only for HIS involvement!! There really was no Gang after Joe.

SORRY! But Joe's da Man!!!!