Customer Reviews

King Of The Honky-Tonk: From The Original Master Tapes

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Remember when this one hit the shelves? There was absolutely NO Webb Pierce available domestically. Of course Bear Family had their mammoth box set out at the time, which I do recommend, but there was nothing.

Then one day I found this at the record store and nearly caused a scene.

This includes a lot of his most well known songs. Not all of them, but most of them.

The booklet is fantastic looking and the sound is spectacular.

Another cornerstone of my record collection

Which country singer was the #1 country "singles" ie,(45's and 78's) seller of the 1950's. You got it-Webb Pierce. Webb and Ray Price and ET cut the best honky tonk country in the 1950's. Webb was pure honky tonk from his nasal twang to his custom made nudie's of hollywood suits.This cd is fantastic and includes some of his biggest hits-my favorite being "There stands the glass". If you wanna cry in your beer or feel like you're two steppin on a sawdust floor in a honky tonk circa 1958-then this cd will do it for ya. One of the all time great Country singers.

Webb Pierce...WOW! i love his singing. no, i don't want to hear him sing at high volume...but his voice is distinct that's for sure. some have made or heard the comments that Webb is either under-rated or is forgotten. i have an answer for that. Webb lived a life that was opposite what one might think. He was NEVER a hell-raiser, despite his reputation for honky-tonk songs. The only time he raised cane was inside a studio or backstage at a concert if something didn't go as planned. He had his share of temper-flare up's but that like i said was a result of business and nothing personal. Also, he remained married to one woman for decades which is another rarity in country music. To top it all off, he remained honky-tonk and he remained decked out in rhinestones long after people stopped wearing them. He wasn't Porter Waggoner. Porter's the ONLY artist i've seen who the public insists seeing in Nudie suits (Nudie was the name of a designer). Another reason for his lack of durability lay within his commercial out-put. After 1965, he only had one single to make the Top-10 out of dozens of singles released to radio. This, coupled with his flashy lifestyle, didn't win him any friends in the post '60s Nashville caught up in Billy Sherrill's countrypolitan songs and Owen Bradley's nashville sound. This CD contains a boatload of Webb's important songs. All of them are here. The fact that 11 of his 13 #1 hits are here and a few lesser-known Top-10 hits and album tracks thrown in make this the best available single CD collection on Webb Pierce. "Love, Love, Love" and "That Heart Belongs to Me" are the #1 hits not on this CD. I would've added "Love, Love, Love" since it was a 13 week #1 hit and taken off "Broken Engagement", which is track 4, since it wasn't a hit. Well, the infectious "Sparkling Brown Eyes" is track #10. The Wilburn Brothers provide the harmony like they do on "In The Jailhouse Now". I also like the last three songs: "Honky Tonk Song", "Tupelo County Jail", and "I Ain't Never". Even though his honky-tonk fans dismiss them as rock-a-billy fluff, i enjoy them.

This fantastic CD gives you 16 of the EIGHTY-FOUR Top 40 Country hits Webb chalked up between 1952 and 1971, with two more previously-unreleased cuts (in the U.S.) for good measure [I Just Can't Be True and Broken Engagement].

Among the others you get eleven of his thirteen # 1 hits, and wonderfully comprehensive liner notes by Ronnie Pugh of the Country Music Foundation. There are also three nice pictures inside in which Webb displays his, er ... unique costumes.

But never mind the gaudy garb, this is a man whose # 1s spent a total of ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN WEEKS at that position, and a grand total of THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY THREE weeks on the charts. That's SEVEN YEARS my friends, and we're only talking about his # 1s.

The only thing I find offensive about this compilation is the small note on the reverse of the liner notes urging me to visit the Country Music Hall Of Fame And Museum. Why offensive? Because, in a manner befitting Ripley's Believe It Or Not, Webb Pierce, who passed away from pancreatic cancer on February 24, 1991, was denied entry to that shrine until 2001. According to the liner notes he had been a finalist just months before he died but was again overlooked at that time.

All I can say is, they must have some pretty stringent criteria.

Webb Pierce, like Lefty Frizzell, was one of the stars of the post-Hank Williams era. Though Frizzell is more famous, and arguably the better artist, Pierce's music stands high and mighty as well. A lot of the styles here echoe back to older genres like bluegrass and appalachian, but that's what makes it all the more enjoyable (you see what influenced a 1950s honky tonk singer).

Most of Pierce's hits, like "More & more", "There stands the glass" and "Wondering" are here. Also, he covered Jimmie Rodgers ("In the jailhouse now"), Moon Mullican ("Sparkling blue eyes" renamed "Sparkling brown eyes") and George Jones ("Why baby why"). A solid collection, but (unlike Hank Williams, Moon Mullican or Jimmie Rodgers collections, which also have appeal to non-country fans) one that requires a love of country music to enjoy. I myself love country music, and this is as pure as it gets.

You don't hear Webb Pierce on the radio anymore; even classic country stations don't play him very often. That's odd because he was one hot record maker during the 50s, when most of these tracks were cut. The sound is pure honky tonk - wailing fiddles and hot steel. Starting with his big hit "Wondering" to the rollicking "I Ain't Never," this set offers a good single disc distillation of Pierce and his hits. He certainly had a piercing voice, shown to good effect here.

This CD contains all the Webb Pierce classics when he was a true country star which is why I purchased it. It's too bad they didn't cut off about 5 songs in which he feebly attempted a crossover to country rock so to speak. If you want Webb at his country music best, pass this one by.