The Best of Mel Tillis: The Columbia Years

Mel Tillis | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 10, 2004)
• Original Release Date: 2000
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Collector's Choice
• ASIN: B0000EWO5A
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #47,991 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. It Takes A Worried Man To Sing A Worried Song

2. Honky Tonk Song

3. Juke Box Man

4. This Heart

5. Teen Age Wedding

6. The Violet And A Rose

7. Finally

8. The Brooklyn Bridge

9. Sawmill

10. Georgia Town Blues

11. It's So Easy

12. Loco Weed

13. Walk On, Boy

14. Hearts Of Stone

15. Party Girl

16. I Ain't Never

17. Heart Over Mind

18. No Love Have I

19. Ten Thousand Drums

20. Mary Don't You Weep

See all 24 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

There is so little Mel Tillis available it’s almost an embarrassment for the record industry; after all, the man is the #25 highest-charting artist in country music history! And here’s where that legendary career got started, at Columbia, where Mel thrived as a young songwriter and notched his first hits. Compiler and annotator Greg Adams has selected the finest two dozen of Mel’s Columbia tracks, over half of which have never been on CD—historic country, yours exclusively from 'Collectors’ Choice Music'!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The missing years of a onetime country legend, February 19, 2004

By 

DJ Joe Sixpack (...in Middle America) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Best of Mel Tillis: The Columbia Years (Audio CD)

It's funny: looking at all those old Webb Pierce albums, I always imagined he and Mel Tillis were best buds, collaborating together on those rock-influenced honkytonk shuffles, along with Webb's songwriting secret weapons, Wayne P. Walker. Turns out, though, that Tillis was one of those woebegotten Nashville second-stringers whose work Webb would poach at will, rushing out his own versions of other people's songs (with the full weight of the Decca Records publicity machine behind him), and locking down the chart hit before the original artist's single could gather any steam.

For Mel Tillis, it was definitely a double-edged sword -- Pierce's version of "I'm Tired" (poached from Ray Price) established Tillis as a popular songwriter, but Webb's subsequent preemptions put a stranglehold on Tillis's early hopes at a career as a star. If Webb always had a hit with the songs, how could Mel establish himself as a performer? This disc captures the drama of these formative early years, recording for Don Law and the folks at Columbia... Tillis tried tossing a lot of stuff at the wall, to see what would stick, there are plenty of teenpop tunes, penned for the Elvis Presley/Ricky Nelson crowd, adapted folk tunes, and even a few "historical" tunes, ala Johnny Horton and Claude King... But it's the honkytonk numbers that really stand out: Tillis's own versions of songs such as "No Love Have I," "Heart Over Mind" and "Tupelo County Jail" (which all show an interesting stylistic debt to George Jones...) Mel's singles mostly flopped, and it would be several years before he'd start to have hits, over on the Kapp label, and later on MGM... Still, his early work sounds fun today... This is a nice historical set, and a must-have for Tillis fans!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Mel Tillis!!, December 13, 2007

By 

Gregory J. Burton (Muskegon, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Best of Mel Tillis: The Columbia Years (Audio CD)

This is a awesome CD. 24 classic Mel Tillis tunes. A few songs were redone later, and they did well again. Mel can just sing. This CD will get your feet tapping for sure. Some have a Rock 'n' Roll sound, but Mel hasn't missed touching base with country. It's just a great selection. I bought this for my mother's birthday. I'm sure she'll enjoy it. Mel Tillis is her favorite too!