Comments

Mr. Steward,

You are 100% right, this an unbelievable lazy job by Collector's Choice. What a wasted opportunity. Let's hope one day Bear Family will do this music proud & will release the Tiffany Transcriptions in it's entirety. Until then, I'll give this a miss.

Note that I have all the original CD's, so there is no point in buying them for me. If you don't have these, it's a fine buy.

For those like myself who didn't already own this music, this box set is a great opportunity. I don't know much about Collector's Choice, but I don't think they are known for their top-shelf box sets a la Bear Family. This may be little more than repackaging of an old product, but it's great music much of which has been out of print for a while, and people shouldn't be discouraged from buying it. With all due respect, a two-star review seems more punishing than fair.

Thansk for your candor. Are there any single or even double CD's still in print that duplicate this music? I'm new to this music, and would like to sample it before spending $100+. Thanks!

By all means, if you don't own this, you should buy it. It's a decent deal for under $100. Keep in mind, though, that is far from complete, and it wouldn't have taken that much to add 50-60 more Tiffanys of excellent quality to make it a product for longtime fans as well.

Mr. Steward,

Any thoughts on the quality of the remastering?

Kind Regards.

I just did a side-by-side comparison of the new CD's versus the Rhino issue from the 90's, and there is a noticeable difference in the couple of tracks I checked. The overall levels are higher (louder), but more significantly, the vocals of the great Tommy Duncan are distinctly less tinny on the newer edition. I don't know that I would've noticed the difference without such a direct comparison, but it's there, no question.

Thanks for your comments about the remastering. That's useful info.

[Deleted by the author on Feb 26, 2009 9:51 AM PST]

This is a fantastic set of music and if you don't own it, you should. Collectors Choice licensed this material from Warners who owns Rhino Records. This is all the material that Rhino has so Collectors Choice did not have access to any more Tiffany recordings.

I have two complaints which I have expressed to Collectors Choice. The Tiffany Transcriptions were rescued from a basement in Oakland California by Kaleidoscope Records owners the late Jeff Alexson and me, Tom Diamant. We dubbed them, chose the songs for those first 9 albums plus the McKinney sisters one, sequenced them, arranged for the notes by the original musicians, supervised the whole thing, and originally released them on Kaleidoscope Records yet we are not credited by name on the Collectors Choice issue, except for doing a couple of interviews. Also, the marvelous art work that appears on the original albums and the covers of the Collectors Choice CDs was done by Elizabeth Weil, who is also not credited. We receive no royalties for these later reissues, but it would have been nice to have a line of type acknowledging our efforts.

That being said, buy it anyway. It is essential American Music. The notes by Rich Kienzle are good, but there is a much deeper story that could have been told.

There were over 360 or so complete takes recorded by Bob Wills for the Tiffany Transcriptions. Many are not so good but interesting just the same. A chronologicaly ordered, complete box set would be not easy listening and for fanatics only. Those first 9 CDs were the cream of the crop (there is a volume 10, but it was never issued and that's another story. The McKinney Sisters was part of a different series and not considered Volume 10.)