This is a good collection and a good value. Of the 12 songs, I rate 8 of them very good or excellent. My favorites are "The City Of New Orleans", "Overture From Tommy" and "Never Ending Song Of Love". I only rate one of the songs, "Small Beginnings" as less than good.

If you like early 70s music and you need several of these songs for your collection, this CD is a good buy.

I couldn't pass up this album because it has some songs that are hard to find elsewhere, especially this version of "Overture From Tommy," but it's a confused collection. Unlike the first albums of this series that were highly focused on a given year, this one spans from late 1969 (when "Midnight Cowboy" first appeared on the charts) through late 1972 ("The City of New Orleans"). Also, some of the songs are too obscure ("Small Beginnings") and there are no really exciting songs anywhere, which makes it a fairly dull listening experience.

I'm not a great fan of this type of collection, but this one has one of my all-time favorite tunes on it that can be found nowhere else ("Toast And Marmalade For Tea"), and most of the other tunes take me back to the AM-radio playing at my suburban neighborhood pool what seems like 1000 years ago.

There are, as there always are with these collections, 4 or 5 tunes that are just garbage and would be better off forgotten. Why would anyone listen to "The Assembled Multitude" (whatever that is) stumble through the Overture from Tommy when the Who's version is lightyears better? Why would anyone listen to The New Seekers "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing," a tune better known for being used in a Coke commercial than anything else? And why, why, WHY would anyone listen to Wayne Newton sing anything at all?

The 70's were very weird, that's why.

By the way, I grew up during this period and listened to the radio every waking hour, and I can say with absolute confidence that I never heard of Flash or their awful, awful song "Small Beginnings" until I bought this CD.

After seeing how the format for the first 15 volumes played out, you were probably expecting the likes of the George Baker Selection's "Paloma Blanca," Rhythm Heritage's "Theme From SWAT" and Sweet's "Action" to be featured here; instead, they decided to dedicate this volume (and the next) to tracks they somehow overlooked the first time. Maybe they should have left well enough alone: Delaney & Bonnie's "Never Ending Song Of Love" wasn't all that bad, I suppose, but their other 1971 hit, "Only You Know And I Know," would have been a better fit here; and they also picked the wrong version of "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing," as the Hillside Singers' rendition contains some lyrics omitted by the New Seekers ("Put your hand in my hand, Let's begin today/With your hand in my hand, help me find a way."). Post-Sputnik babies will find "Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast" to be a distasteful (even if arguably necessary) reminder of the family breakups that scarred so many of them as children, and "City Of New Orleans" includes one line that would be considered "politically incorrect" if the song came out today ("Freightyards full of old black men"). Fortunately, however, three 1970 offerings - "Vehicle," "Ride Captain Ride" and "Midnight Cowboy" - save this collection from being a total disappointment.

Rhino pulls no punches with their now-infamous collection of 70's tracks that offer some hidden treasures, but also a lot of buried (and best that way) musical corpses. This particular edition ain't all that bad, considering some of the other earlier volumes.

The Blood, Sweat and Tears-inflected "Vehicle" and "Ride Captain Ride" are fine, stand-out tracks that still rock out on various radio stations. However, it is the folk-flavored songs that will pique the most interest. "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" (before infamously being transformed into a corporate shill for Coca-Cola) is offered up in its earlier, sentimental form; but will I be able to hear it without thinking of Coke? Nah, doubt it!

Other stand-outs include "The City of New Orleans", one of Arlo Guthrie's best songs by far. Also included is a rocker still played on FM classic-rock stations today, "I'd Love to Change the World", which has great acoustic and electric guitar by frontman Alvin Lee, yet lyrically leaves a bad taste in my mouth with its shameless (hopefully tongue-in-cheek?) socialist posturing.

The "Tommy Overture" by The Assembled Multitude is a pleasant listen, but doesn't groove the way The Who did it. Wayne Newton's "Daddy, Don't You Walk So Fast" is just a plain stinker, and should automatically prove to everyone why Wayno is stuck in the home for musically-spent artists, Las Vegas. Robert John's pre-"Sad Eyes" "Lion Sleeps Tonight" doesn't hold a candle to the Tokens' version. Ick!

The rest is pretty much filler, and not really known all that well. But I have to say that "Toast and Marmalade..." and "Never Ending Song of Love" are pretty darned good fillers.

All in all, decent songs, accompanied by only a few clunkers. My biggest gripe (as it is with every volume in the collection) is that the discs aren't longer. Surely, they could have turned a 23-volume set into a good 14- or 15-volume compilation. Ah well, just enjoy hearing these songs again in CD clarity. Just be aware that amongst the diamonds are a few turds.