Rca Country Legends

Buddha Records has been mining the RCA/BMG vaults as of late and reissuing some great material. This is a very nice 16 track compilation from the king of country piano. My only complaint is that it doesn't act as a very good companion to Cramer's ESSENTIAL disc from a few years back. That's because 6 of the tracks from this disc were on that one as well. In addition, 5 of the tracks have been digitally remastered on BMG's German reissue of Cramer's HELLO BLUES album. So all in all, 11 of these tracks are already available. It would have been nice if Buddha had concentrated on tracks that had not already been remastered on compact disc before. Of the 5 that have been cleaned up sonically for the first time, two are rarely heard latter day singles: "Rhythm of the Rain" (from 1977) and "Dallas" (from '80). They are both pleasant surprises and probably the reason Cramer fans will want this disc even if they already have ESSENTIAL and HELLO BLUES. I just hope that the next Cramer compilation will include less common tracks such as these, rather than "Last Date" and "Flip Flop and Bop" yet again. The packaging is beautiful, by the way, with great liner notes and nice photos, including full page reproductions of the pics that were featured on the covers of the COMING ON and CLASS OF '66 LPs.