The Hits...Then 'Til Now [Box]

Performer: George Jones
Artist: Melba Montgomery; Tammy Wynette; Johnny Paycheck; James Taylor; Chet Atkins; Ray Charles; Merle Haggard; The Oak Ridge Boys
Producer: Harold W. "Pappy" Daily; Emory Gordy, Jr.; Keith Stegall; Norro Wilson; Billy Sherrill; Colin Escott (Compilation)
Distributor: WEA (Distributor)

Notes: Personnel: James "J.T." Taylor (vocals). Liner Note Author: Colin Escott. Authors: Clint Black; George & Nancy Jones; Emmylou Harris; Garth Brooks; Randy Travis; Vince Gill; Waylon Jennings. The career of one of America's greatest singers--let alone country singers--is charted with precision over the course of this three-disc box set. From early hits like "White Lightning" and "The Race is On," through classic countrypolitan material such as "The Grand Tour," up to latter-day classics like "He Stopped Loving Her Today" and "I Don't Need Your Rockin' Chair," this set doesn't miss a step, and includes an impressive 40-page booklet to boot. 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

Blender (Magazine) (p.79) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Not only does it document the young hit machine whose voice was too big to fit in a honky-tonk, it proves how well he aged after his two great decades ended in 1991."

George Jones is the greatest of country singers but he has also been a victim of the infamous hard-living honky-tonk lifestyle. Though he's gone through several phases, from rockabilly to honky-tonk to countrypolitan, his melismatic, Lefty Frizell-influenced style has remained at the core of his unique sound. His stormy marriage to Tammy Wynette (1969-75) included duet albums of love songs and bitter recriminations. By the late '70s, his drinking and cocaine addiction had made him so unreliable that he was known as "No Show Jones." In 1979 he received medical treatment and staged a significant comeback with I AM WHAT I AM, which included his greatest single, "He Stopped Loving Her Today."

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