Search - Lefty Frizzell :: That's the Way Life Goes: Hit Songs 1950-1975

Great Introduction To The Legend Of Lefty

James E. Bagley | Sanatoga, PA USA | 02/03/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"A link between Mississippi's Jimmie Rodgers and California's Merle Haggard, smooth Texas crooner William Orville ("Lefty") Frizzell made #1 with both sides of his 1950 debut: "If You've Got The Money, I've Got The Time" (featuring Madge Suttee's rinky-tinky piano) and "I Love You A Thousand Ways." 1951 brought four simultaneous top-tenners: "I Want To Be With You Always," sappy "Mom And Dad's Waltz," laid-back "Always Late (With Your Kisses)" and a cover of Rodgers' 1931 "Travellin' Blues." But after '54, he only cracked the Top 10 twice: with `59's eerie "The Long Black Veil" (a future cover for The Band, The Chieftains and others) and `63's "Saginaw Michigan" with its final comic twist.



Raven's nicely remastered and annotated 28-song That's The Way Life Goes has nothing Frizzell aficionados don't already have on Varese Sarabande's That's The Way Love Goes collection that covers `70s ABC tracks or Columbia/Legacy's 1950-65 two-CD Look What Thoughts Will Do. Still, it's a fine introduction to a singer who explained, "I wanted to hold one word through a whole line of melody, to linger with it all the way down. I didn't want to let go of that no more than I wanted to let go of the woman I loved.""