All-Time Greatest Hits [Sony]

Performer: Ray Price
Distributor: Bayside Record Dist.

Notes: Personnel: Ray Price (vocals, guitar). According to Sony, they'd have you believe that these "all time greatest hits" are somehow all Ray Price original performances. They're not, particularly the older honky tonk material. In fact, all of this material comes from Price's most popular period -- that much is true -- as a country music crooner with a golden voice and a load of strings behind him and a studio band. That doesn't mean this material is in any way second-rate, most of it is awesome stuff. It's simply that the compilers felt that even later recordings such as "Bridge Over Troubled Water," and "Little Green Apples" are of the same stripe with Price's harder early material. It's not. That said, out of these 20 cuts, 12 of them are simply the stuff that made Price a legend. ~ Thom Jurek

Texan country singer Ray Price got the best possible start by having Hank Williams himself for a mentor. After Williams's death, Price began using Hank's Drifting Cowboys as a backup band and performing in a remarkably similar style. After putting together a new band to find his own sound, he essentially invented the 4/4 country shuffle, replacing the traditional country 2/4 beat. This combination of honky-tonk and Western Swing both influenced a whole school of country and helped pave the way for rockabilly. Besides his voluminous body of solo work, Price was also known for his latter-day collaborations with Willie Nelson, whose "Night Life" had been an early-'60s Price hit.

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