Customer Reviews

Joe Tex - 25 All Time Greatest Hits

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This basically covers all the main trademark hits of the late great Joe Tex, that anyone would ever need, but i wish it would have added his pretty ballads of his B sides of "A Mothers Prayer" and "Baby It's Rainin'". But all n' all, this a great must have collection. Go buy yours today !!

If you're not "into" soul music, you may know Joe Tex only from his mainstream hit "I Gotcha," and the follow-up, "You Said a Bad Word." Both of these are downright raunchy numbers that sounds like anthems for sexual predators. However, if you listen to this CD, you'll see that these are in sharp contrast to much of Joe Tex's material. Although some of the other songs, such as "Skinny Legs and All," are humorous, even these aren't raunchy to the same extent. More importantly, most of the songs deal with very serious subjects and show a strong sensitivity to real-life tragedy. These songs are also interesting musically because although they fall firmly into the genre of soul, there's a strong overtone of country in the mix. Joe Tex was actually from Texas, and pays tribute to that state in his chosen stage name. Give this a listen and you'll see that there's much more to Joe Tex than adolescent raunchiness.

I got a Joe Tex greatest hits in 1966 and loved it and continually played it till the cd age. This cd has all the tracks from my vinyl album bar one - 'you had better get it'. They're all on '25 greatest hits'.
Apparently Joe had 33 hits - I guess that must be mostly from the R'n'B charts but he had some US top ten hits.
I remember him getting some airplay for 'Show me' and 'sweet woman like you' but don't recall him troubling the UK charts until the 70s with maybe his worst song - the aforementioned 'ain't gonna bop no more...'
Whatever, he doesn't have any huge hits that everyone knows and loves like Percy Sledge or Otis Redding, but he has tracks of that calibre - 'the Love you save' is easily as good as ' Try a little tenderness','I've been loving you too long' or 'When a man loves a woman'.
And he has more good ones. I find that I never listen to more than 6 tracks each from Otis or Percy Sledge, but I can listen to nearly all of this over and over, and then there's 'Live and lively' another live album which has more essential stuff not featured here.
Joe's voice doesn't seem to have the higher register that we've come to expect soul stars to show their chops by soaring into now and again. Instead he has an astonishing bass register that he soars down into to show off sometimes. Indeed, many of his self-penned songs seem designed to show off his bass register, most notably the gorgeous ' the Love You Save '. There's also an oft-noted country influence in his songwriting; in fact he recorded an album of country covers 'Soul Country'.
His band are wonderful throughout - that Stax/Atlantic sound that no-one seems to be able to get these days; Joss Stone seems to be trying for it sometimes, and she does get a pretty decent approximation to 70s era Gladys Knight, but she never quite gets this. Special mentions are due to the piano player Bobby Woods (session man- the only one credited) and especially to guitar player Lee Royal Hadley, very much in the Steve Cropper mould, the type of guitar playing Jimi Hendrix cut his teeth on.
This cd has the later hits 'gotcha' and 'you said a bad word' which I was unaware of previously but seem to have attracted a lot of attention. My personal choice for a Joe Tex compilation would be the 'Skinny Legs and all' collection, for the inclusion of some very early gems like 'Meet me in Church', 'Sweetest woman in the world' and 'watch the one that brings the bad news'(on this one he sounds too much like early Taj Mahal for coincidence, but I don't know who influenced who - Joe's bluesiest number). But most people these days seem to want the later hits, so '25 greatest hits' is the one for them.
If you like this you'll also find 'Live and lively' indispensible, and you'll have to get 'Skinny legs and all' for those tracks I mentioned. You had better get it!

I purchased this CD as a gift for by manfriend. He absolutely loved it! I would definitely recommend this CD for anyone who loves Blues/and or are fans of Joe Tex.

I recently purchased this CD as a birthday gift. I know I chose the perfect gift because he hasn't stop playing it since he got it. Unlike some CDs that have only a couple of good songs with the rest being garbage; all of the songs on this CD are teriffic. There were even a couple of songs that he'd never heard before. This CD is worth having in your collection.

This is some Classic Soul music.Skinny Legs&All is the jam.You Feel The Fun&Grooves here.Joe Tex is A Soul Singer in the Realist FOrm.A must have.