Customer Reviews

The Golden Age of American Rock 'n' Roll: Special Country Music Edition

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This CD has been in the making for quite a while. The quality of all ACE product is nothing short of fabulous and this one ranks very high on the excellent quality list. Each and every recording is better than you have ever heard. This issue contains some classic country cross over material that many fans of fifties and sixties rock and roll will relate.
Unlike modern country stars who are subject to the same principles of rapid turnover as their pop counterparts, the country stars of yesteryear were renowned for the longevity of their careers. Once established, they seemed immune to the fickle whims of time and fashion and were guaranteed a following for life, even though some were relatively mature men and women to begin with. Years were lopped off birth dates; toupees were de rigueur for the follically challenged male artists and booze, adultery, hypocrisy, suffering and greed marked the patterns of their lives as readily as it informed the songs they sang. It was these human frailties that endeared them to their fans and in their day they brought pleasure to millions.

Tracks featured include standards such as He'll Have To Go, Oh Lonesome Me, Ring Of Fire, Walk On By and King Of The Road, cult classics, such as Flowers On The Wall, Don't Let Me Cross Over, and Six Days On The Road, and influential trailblazers like Ray Price's Crazy Arms and Detroit City by Bobby Bare. These mega-hits, and others like them, provided now-household names like Johnny Cash, Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline with a springboard to enduring stardom. As with all ACE products, this Special Country Edition comes with a lavishly illustrated 24-page booklet with detailed annotation by Rob Finnis. It's pure excellence.

Aside from thousands of regular "Golden Age" fans, this Special Edition is sure to appeal to many of you out there who want just one discerning selection of Country classics in their collections, as well as country diehards who will welcome an opportunity to acquire 30 of their favourite records - beautifully sequenced and mastered - in the same place, at the same time! This one is a must for every collector. A big thanks to Rob Finnis and ACE!

In the past years I have bought lots of ACE records: The
complete series of "Golden Age of American Rock & Roll" (10
CD's) Teen Age Crush (4) Johnny Tillotson, Gene Pitney,Jerry Lee
Lewis, Larry Williams etc. etc. These recordings are the best
ones around. A song from 1954, 55, 56 is turned into a modern-
like recent recorded one. In 2002 ACE reords launched a special
edition of country hits that made it to the Hot 100 on the
pop charts. This is another incredible compilation. From
these 30 original recordings 21 are in full stereo and 20
of them made it to the #1 spot on the C&W charts. I hope
ACE will continue to releasing all these wonderful compilations
whether it's Rock & Roll, Country, Be Bop, Blues or anything
else because as far as quality reordings there's nothing like
it. There are other companies who do their best like Eric and
Life time but they only put 15 to 20 songs on a record and
not 30 like ACE does. Not buying or getting this particular
CD would be a shame!
These guys deserve a monument!

This CD is one of the best collections of true classic country music I've ever found. Full-length songs by the original artists and a terrific selection, too. You can't ask for anything more. It would have been worth the price for me just to get to hear Carl Butler sing "Don't Let Me Cross Over" one more time, but add Wanda Jackson singing "Right Or Wrong", Dave Dudley's "Six Days On The Road" and all the other wonderful old songs and you have a winning CD that will keep you listening to it over and over again for hours. If you buy only one classic country CD this year, make it this one. It is well worth the money and will give you great country music from a time when it really was country music.

I thank the people at ACE again for such a great compilation.
I'am a fan of music of the 50's & 60's, especially rock 'n'roll, soul and I also like real country music. And now finally there is a collection of country-music availlable. I'ts very diverse and all 30 tracks are good, especially those of the 50's.
It is great to hear country music by artists who are not looking as models but can really sing.
...

Few golden oldie fans/collectors/historians will dispute that Ace Records of the U.K. ranks at the very top of a short list of the best distributors of such music (others being Eric, Bear Family, Jasmine, Acrobat, ASV Living Era, Collectors Choice, Rhino), both in terms of the quality of their sound and in the provision of detailed background notes/discographies, whether for multi-artist compilations of the best of single artists/groups.

Their top series of multi-artist volumes has to be The Golden Age Of American Rock `N' Roll which, at last count, had 11 individual volumes, along with a number of off-shoots (Special "Bubbling Under" Edition, The Follow-Up Hits, Special Novelty Edition, Special Doo Wop Edition, and this one covering Country Music (they also have a related series titled The Golden Age Of American Popular Music - one volume so far - and two off-shoots called The Country Hits and The Folk Hits).

The selections chosen for this volume range from 1956 to 1965 and are, collectively, certainly among the most famous of the Country hits from that period as all but one also crossed over to the more lucrative Billboard Pop Top/Hot 100, as well as to the Adult Contemporary (AC) charts, introduced in late 1961 AND, in a few cases, even to the R&B charts. The one exception, as it turns out, is also the Country hit here with the longest run at # 1 - 20 full weeks - but for some strange reason Ray Price's Crazy Arms did not crack the Top 100 in 1956. Go figure.

From 1957 they chose Gone by Ferlin Husky (# 1 Country for 12 weeks and # 4 Top 100) and Marvin Rainwater';s Gonna Find Me A Bluebird (# 3 Country/# 18 Top 100), while 1958 is represented by Don Gibson's Oh, Lonesome Me (# 1 Country for 8 weeks/# 7 Top 100). From 1959 you get five: White Lightning (written by J. P. Richardson, aka The Big Bopper, who would perish that February in the same plane crash that took the lives of Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens), and a # 1 Country for 5 weeks and a # 73 Hot 100 for George Jones; He'll Have To Go by Jim Reeves (# 1 Country for 14 weeks, # 2 Hot 100 AND # 13 R&B); Webb Pierce's I Ain't Never (# 2 Country/# 24 Hot 100); The Battle Of New Orleans by Johnny Horton (# 1 Country for 10 weeks, # 1 Hot 100 for 6 weeks, and # 3 R&B); and Stonewall Jackson's Waterloo (# 1 Country for 5 weeks/# 4 Hot 100, and # 11 R&B).

From the first year of the decade of the Sixties comes El Paso by Marty Robbins (# 1 Country for 7 weeks/# 1 Hot 100 for 2 weeks); Please Help Me I'm Falling by Hank Locklin (# 1 Country for 14 weeks/# 8 Hot 100); Bob Luman's satirical Let's Think About Living (# 7 Hot 100/# 9 Country and # 14 R&B); and Alabam by Cowboy Copas (# 1 Country for 12 weeks/# 63 Hot 100). No less than six are culled from 1961: You're The Reason by Bobby Edwards (# 4 Country/# 11 Hot 100); Jimmy Dean's Big Bad John (# 1 AC for 10 weeks/# 1 Hot 100 for 5 weeks/# 1 Country for 2 weeks); Walk On By by Leroy Van Dyke (# 1 Country for 19 weeks/# 5 Hot 100); I Fall To Pieces by Patsy Cline (# 1 Country for 2 weeks/# 6 AC/# 12 Hot 100); Right Or Wrong by Wanda Jackson (# 9 Country and AC/# 29 Hot 100); and Hello Walls by Faron Young (# 1 Country for 9 weeks/ # 12 Hot 100/# 13 AC - written by Willie Nelson and the record that resurrected a sagging career for Young at the time).

Four more come from 1962: Don't Let Me Cross Over by Carl Butler And Pearl (his wife at the time - # 1 Country for 11 weeks/# 88 Hot 100); Claude King's Wolverton Mountain (# 1 Country for 9 weeks/# 3 AC/# 6 Hot 100); From A Jack To A King by Ned Miller (# 2 Country/# 3 AC/# 6 Hot 100); and A Little Bitty Tear by Burl Ives (# 1 AC for 1 weeks/# 2 Country/# 9 Hot 100), while these five were hits in 1963: Bobby Bare's Detroit City (# 6 Country/# 16 Hot 100); Abilene by George Hamilton IV (# 1 Country for 4 weeks/# 15 Hot 100); Ring Of Fire by Johnny Cash (# 1 Country for 7 weeks/# 17 Hot 100); Bill Anderson's Still (# 1 Country for 7 weeks/# 3 AC/# 8 Hot 100); and Six Days On The Road by Bill Dudley (# 2 Country/# 13 AC/# 32 Hot 100).

For some reason they skip over 1964 (a couple of candidates would have been Roger Miller's Dang Me and Understand Your Man by Johnny Cash, among 6 other # 1 Country hits), and from 1965 they present Flowers On The Wall by The Statler Brothers (# 2 Country/# 4 Hot 100) and King Of The Road by Roger Miller (# 1 Country for 5 weeks/# 1 AC for 10 weeks/# 4 Hot 100).

So, all in all, a pretty definitive collection of the best Country had to offer in that 10-year span.

Ace Records of the U.K., the label that has set the standard for reissues of tunes from the golden age of American rock and roll with its "Golden Age..." series goes one step further here with a special edition devoted to country classics. With the availability of original country tunes from the 50's and 60's getting harder and harder to come by, this is a welcome appearance.

As with the others in the series, Ace has maintained the utmost quality in this CD - a massive 30 tracks, excellent sound quality with many cuts in stereo and a magnificent 24-page liner notes booklet to tell the stories behind the music presented. This piece provides both the casual listener and the avid collector with a broad spectrum of tunes including monster hits and seldom-found rarities. Every tune here was a top-ten country charted as well as having made the top-100 pop charts. Among the well-known hits are Marty Robbins' "El Paso", Johnny Horton's "Battle of New Orleans", Roger Miller's "King of the Road" along with 13 other top-ten pop-charting tunes. Satisfying the collector is the appearance of rarities such as Carl Butler's "Don't Let Me Cross Over", Dave Dudley's "Six Days on the Road" (the original version - not the oft-marketed re-recorded version) and Bobby Edwards' "You're the Reason".

Keeping up with the standard of the other "Golden Age..." compilations, sound quality is about as good as it gets for these tracks with 20 of the 30 tracks appearing in stereo. Packed with tons of background info on the included tracks interspersed with pics and art spots, the liner notes booklet completes the set in extraordinary fashion. Most unfortunately, Ace has, at least purportedly, ended its "Golden Age..." series making this superb piece a mere tease for what could be expected had Ace continued with more discs in this vein. Nonetheless, this outstanding compilation heads the list of CD's of interest for fans of the genre.

I was extremily plesased with this CD. Every song on there was a top hit. Vintage C&W of the late 50's and early 60's.