Some years ago, Mercury released a double CD (Cup of loneliness) containing 48 tracks from George's recordings with Starday and Mercury up to 1961. For those who just want the essentials on a single CD, Mercury how now released this compilation, which includes nineteen of those 48 tracks plus three others - Money to burn, You're still on my mind and She thinks I still care (the latter track was a hit for George on the United Artists label).

Compared with the earlier compilation, there are some notable omissions including Accidentally on purpose, Seasons of my heart and Tall tall trees. I can understand the difficulty of getting everything that matters on to a single CD but I think these three songs could have been included. Even so, none of these songs are absolutely essential (those who disagree will buy Cup of loneliness instead).

Most of George's most famous songs came after he left Mercury but among the classic tracks here are Why baby why, I'm ragged but I'm right, Color of the blues, White lightning, Who shot Sam, Window up above and Tender years.

While this collection cannot be as comprehensive as Cup of loneliness, it achieves its purpose of providing all of George's important early hits on a single CD. Building a collection of George's music can be very expensive. For most people, this will be sufficient to represent the early years.

Like the other reviewer said, this is a great 1 disc distillation of The 2 CD "Cup of Loneliness" compilation that also adds "She Thinks I Still Care" from the United Artists period. If you want more than this get "Cup of Loneliness" and The Razor and Tie "She Thinks I still Care". For some reason, both this and the other Mercury compilation substitute a rerecording of "Why Baby Why". I don't know why since they use the orginals of a couple other Starday recordings. Anyway, if you want the original version, which I think is better, you'll find it on Columbia's Spirit of Country, and probably a 100 other compilations.

... or was it whiskey??? Who cares, it's George! What's not to like? (Unless you don't, in which case, don't bother me about it!)

All in all, it's a good cd if you are looking for a smattering of his early stuff. The stuff that comes later on tends to be more in the rotation for me, but this was a good place to start for me to start to hear his earlier works.

Good price too...