Germany's Bear Family is well known for its stellar box set reissues of country, rock, and rhythm & blues recordings, as well as for single titles by deserving if not necessarily remembered American artists. Their mastering, production, and packaging set the industry standard for excellence. The six-volume Dim Lights, Thick Smoke series was released on CD in December of 2008 and covered the years 1945-1950, a strange and wonderful time in country music history born from of the end of the War Department's restrictions on shellac and the end of the recording ban, all near the end of the second world war. These discs all contain either 27 or 28 tracks, and are lavishly annotated with historical essays and track by track annotation by the esteemed Colin Escott, and contain with photographs of performers and record sleeves where available. The 1945 volume is indicative of the rest. Contained here are well-known numbers by legendary artists as well as some relative obscurities -- to novices anyway. But anyway you slice it, these tracks were compiled from the best audio sources available. The better-known selections here are Bob Wills' "Smoke on the Water" and "Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima," Dick Thomas' "Sioux City Sue," Phil Harris' Western swing classic "That's What I Like About the South," Wesley Tuttle's "With Tears in My Eyes," Floyd Tillman's "Each Night at Nine," Tex Ritter's "You Two Timed Me One Time Too Often," Roy Acuff's "We Live in Two Diffr'ent Worlds," Jack Guthrie's stone classic "Oklahoma Hills" (Woody's uncle), and Spade Cooley's "Shame on You," just to name a few. This volume is just a peek into the world that Bear Family opens in the Dim Lights, Thick Smoke series. To add to the bounty: the sound quality here is also unmatched anywhere else. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide