Search - Lefty Frizzell :: Look What Thoughts Will Do

Richard G. (Anodyne) from AKRON, OH
Reviewed on 5/31/2013...

Great music! One of the first honky tonk singers.

An elegant package

N. Dorward | Toronto, ON Canada | 01/16/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I've only recently been listening seriously to country music, so I actually came to this collection backwards, by hearing fine covers of Frizzell tunes (e.g. Iris DeMent's lovely take on "Mom and Dad's Waltz" on her _My Life_). It's one of Columbia's most impressive compilation efforts, & should be enough to turn the head of anyone previously unfamiliar with Frizzell's music. (Columbia has not always been so good about reissues and compilations; they have, for instance, often habitually substituted alternate takes for the originals, a practice that damages their _Essential Bob Wills_ collection & has also on occasion affected albums by Miles Davis, Bill Monroe, Mingus and Ellington. Mercifully they haven't messed around with the music here.) The focus here is mostly on Lefty's early 1950s sides, recorded before the familiar twin devils struck: too much fame too fast, followed by the inevitable bewildering loss of popularity as the decade came to an end and traditional country music lost ground to rock (you can hear him make attempts to modernize his sound in reaction in the last few tracks here--one even has a saxophone solo).Frizzell's music is most remarkable for two things: first, his lovely voice, its gentle bends and slurs remarkably expressive, almost mesmerizing. It's an unusually intimate sound--singing that seems always to be verging on speech--and it gives many of the songs the flavour of an internal monologue or a confession. The number of singers who copied Frizzell's approach must be countless. Secondly, his abilities as a writer and as an interpreter are second to none, encompassing everything from the bright "If You've Got the Money..." to the painful "Always Late (With Your Kisses)" to the genuinely eerie "The Long Black Veil". The variety here is impressive, as is his ability to handle all the material; a tune like "Mom and Dad's Waltz", which one might expect to be bathetic, turns out to be genuinely moving & emotionally fraught.There's much more that could be said about this compilation, but I'll leave it there. One of the other reviewers of this set remarks on its rather ungenerous playing time--each disc has about 45 minutes of material. True, yet I don't feel especially irritated by this, given how well-chosen the selection is--there's no filler here--and that the price is modest (the equivalent of purchasing one-and-a-half CDs)."

A decent collection from one of country music's legends!

Bob Martinez | Brooksville, FL USA | 04/01/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I don't understand the bad reviews on this CD. The sound is very good, and it represents every major hit Lefty ever had. This is honky tonk music at its best. My favorites: I Want To Be With You Always, Always Late, Mom and Dad's Waltz, and Cigarettes and Coffee Blues. His major period from 1950-55 is well represented with every hit and a scattering of good hits from 1955-65. The only omission I wish was on here is "My Baby's Just Like Money, which was the flip side to I Want To Be With You Always. 34 hits,nicely packaged with dates etc. and a wonderful documentation of one of the giants of the 20th Century. It's the only Lefty Frizell CD you' d need unless you're a fanatic."