Growing up around Memphis, TN., I had a lot of musical influences and was unsure of how much I liked country music, but Lefty Frizzell was something of an icon. I see this CD and am surprised to see how many commercial hits there are from when I was a lad. I remember clearly "I Want to Be With You Always", "I Love You a Thousand Ways" (at the same time), the classic "If You've Got the Money", "Always Late", my mother's favorite "Mom and Dad Waltz" and "Cigarette and Coffee Blues" (though I prefer its songwriter Marty Robbins' 1963 version better with, I believe, Owen Bradley on piano). Then down the line was "Saginaw, Michigan". Unless you want MORE songs since you like ONLY Lefty Frizzell and no other OR you are an audiophile, I can't see how one could complain about this compilation. It's a good deal and it fully deserves the best rating. Shame on anybody who says otherwise.

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.

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).

Once again, I have to complain about the way American record companies treat their material. Neither disc in this set runs full length with both clocking at less than 50 minutes. This could've either have been reduced down to one CD (as the RCA essential series) or expanded with lesser known (but still worthy) cuts such as "Out of You", "There's No Food In This House" & "Watermelon Time In Georgia". When Bear Family can come up with a 12 disc set that all CD's run full-length, it's pitiful that the best Sony can do for Lefty is a two CD set with neither CD running full length.

What's here is presented in a clean, re-mastered version. It does serve as a decent sampler and/or intro to one of the greats of country music, but casual fans aren't going to want to pay the price for a two CD set to get introduced to his music and serious fans will have most of this already which essentially leaves "Essential" without an audience.

I would not buy this product from you. This is based on the demo music samples that were played for me. The quality of sound was very poor.