Search - Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Skeeter Davis :: Classic Country: Queens of Country

JOHN M. from LAURIUM, MI
Reviewed on 1/20/2010...

Great selections!

Most Awesome Collection of Country Queens Ever Packaged!

"Tee" | LA | 05/25/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This Time-Life collection of the 20 greatest female country singers of the 1950's through the 1970's has been such a blockbuster success in the television commercial hawking it has been parodied on Saturday Night Live with Jennifer Aniston! This is truly a historic collection of legendary performances that every country music fan should own, spanning from Kitty Wells in the early 50's to Barbara Mandrell in the late 70's. These are the ORIGINAL recordings too! Almost every song on this CD was an essential ground-breaker for country music, a true landmark record! These are songs ("The End of the World", "Ode to Billie Joe", "Rose Garden", "Help Me Make it Through the Night" etc. etc.) that even those with just a passing knowledge of country music are well familiar with and many of these ladies - notably Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Dolly Parton - are true American pop culture legends. Every song and every performance is truly a classic unforgettably performed by as extraordinary a collection of female vocalists as any music genre ever had in a single generation. Certainly today's country "divas" cannot compete with these QUEENS. Every artist here is represented with her signature hit with the curious exceptions of Kitty Wells (her classic "Making Believe" is featured instead of the historic "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels"), Donna Fargo ("Funny Face" may have been a bigger pop crossover but "Happiest Girl in the Whole USA" is surely Donna's most famous song), and Brenda Lee (represented by "Break it to Me Gently" instead of say, "I'm Sorry"). Lee's presence on this collection is the only sour note for me; yes she was a legendary pop artist who recorded in Nashville but this does not make her a country artist. Her song here "Break it to Me Gently" was not even released on the country music market!!! Nor were any of her other 60's pop hits issued to or played on country radio. The fact that she had a modest career later in the 1970's in the country music market does not make her vintage pop oldies now country records!! Her place should have been filled by Jeannie Seely ("Don't Touch Me"), Jan Howard ("Evil on Your Mind"), Susan Raye ("LA International Airport"), or Billie Jo Spears ("Blanket on the Ground"). Nevertheless, this still remains an awesome collection of every important country queen from Jean Shepard to Crystal Gayle to Connie Smith to Emmylou Harris to Dottie West - every one of these women (with the arguable exception of Ms. Lee on whom I may be being a tad too critical) rightfully deserves to be known as one of the true queens of country music."