Customer Reviews

History of Country Music: Best Of The '70s

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This is a wonderful collection of vintage 1970's country music hits, and yes purists, these are the originals. All of these recordings were released on RCA with six exceptions: Loretta Lynn (Decca), Susan Raye (Capitol), The Kendalls (Ovation), and Margo Smith, T. G. Sheppard, and the Bellamys (all Warner Bros.) RCA really dominated country music in the 70's (and the 60's and 80's too) so it's no surprise they had so many of the tracks here. Makes you wonder why they didn't go for an all RCA collection but the other tracks are absolutely wonderful (though the Bellamys have always been too soft rock for me and rarely country enough). You not only get the RCA superstars like Dolly, Waylon, and Ronnie, it's nice to see Dickey Lee here and whoa, what a nice surprise to see Dottsy (I'LL BE YOUR SAN ANTONE ROSE) who had a short but fairly successful stint for RCA. The album opens with Skeeter Davis' wonderful cover version of "Take Me Home Country Roads" but that song was never released as a single for her; Skeeter's 70's hits couldn't match her 60's sensations but she still had a number of top 40 country songs in the 70's so it's odd one of those wasn't used for her track here. Certainly you could hardly have a RCA country compilation without Skeeter D. This is a very good collection of 1970's country hits with some songs not easy to find.

Omigod..."Take Me Home, Country Roads" by Skeeter Davis on this compilation? Well then everyone should buy this. This is a really good CD. There are one or two slow moments, but otherwise this is the epitome of country and western.