George Jones

Like any artist with half a century of recordings to his credit, it's impossible to neatly summarize George Jones' career, as there are just too many great recordings to fit onto a single compilation, even one that runs three discs and 60 songs, as does Time Life's 2008 box The Hits...Then 'Til Now. This set isn't perfect but it does an admirable job of hitting highlights from 1955's "Why Baby Why" to 2001's "Tramp on Your Street" -- which doesn't mean that it hits every highlight along the way. Of course, some omissions are inevitable, as George has racked up over 100 singles on the Billboard country charts, but the unfortunate thing about this set is that Time Life couldn't secure any licensing with the notoriously fickle Musicor label, so there's a big stretch of Jones' career absent from this set -- namely, the mid- to late '60s, when he was one of the most popular singers in country music. This set skips from his United Artists recordings ("The Race Is On," "You Comb Her Hair") to his great Epic recordings of the '70s. This set is heavy on these Epic sides and the early Starday/Mercury sides, dabbling in the '60s and '90s to provide some context. Overall, this does give a good sense of how much Jones has accomplished and it's filled with great music, so it's not a bad introduction or overview by any means -- but if it's compared to Epic/Legacy's 1994 set The Essential George Jones: The Spirit of Country, that double-disc compilation gets the edge, as it draws a portrait of George at his prime instead of trying to follow the Possum over the years. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide