Best Of / Best Of 2 / Best Of 3 / Greatest Hits

I want to start out by saying I enjoy this 4-CD set of classic Charley Pride albums very much, and would recommend it to any fan of his music. This collection covers the 4 "best of " or "greatest hits " albums released between 1969 and 1981. I enjoyed all of his hit singles and all of the album tracks I have heard from this era. Therefore, I won't critique the individual songs as much as look at the composition of these 4 albums.BEST OF...VOL. 1. First of all, this album was my introduction to Charley Pride's music, as my brother had it on 8-track, and that made me a fan. Of the 4 albums collected here, this is the only one that I can say did not leave off any hits. In fact, it's release may have been a bit premature, as it contains 12 songs and was issued when Charley had only charted 8 hits. I think RCA knew that "All I Have to Offer You Is Me" was going to be his biggest hit to that point in time, and wanted to include it on a hit collection as incentive for fans to buy it even if they had some or all of the albums that contained the other songs. (Common industry practice). To fill in the the other 4 spots on the album, they included Charley's first two singles, "The Snakes Crawl at Night" and "Before I Met You", even though they hadn't charted. I think that was to the benefit of the fans. And remember, this is a "best of" rather than greatest hits, so no harm, no foul. The other 2 songs chosen were "Gone on the Other Hand", a B-side, and "Too Hard to Say I'm Sorry", an album cut.BEST OF...VOL. 2. This is the curious one. Counting "Let Me Live", a single that was released from his first gospel album, there are still only 6 of the 10 tracks that were A-sides of singles. The other 4 tracks include 3 B-sides ("In My World You Don't Belong", "You'll Still Be the One", and "A Place for the Lonesome") and one album track ("There's Still Someone I Can't Forget"). (Nice royalties for Johnny Duncan, who wrote 3 of those 4.) Interestingly, with these inclusions, 3 of Charley's hits from this period, "I Can't Believe That You've Stopped Loving Me", "Wonder Could I Live There Anymore", and "All His Children", were omitted from this collection.BEST OF...VOL. 3. This collection covers a time when Charley changed record producers, as Jerry Bradley replaced Charley's long-time producer Jack Clement. Eventually, Charley would join Bradley as a co-producer. Only two songs produced by Clement in 1973, "Don't Fight the Feelings of Love" and "Amazing Love", made this album, while 3 hits that preceded them (but were recorded after Best of vol.2 was released), "It's Gonna Take a Little Bit Longer", "She's Too Good to Be True", and "A Shoulder to Cry On" were left off, as was 1974's "We Could". But 2 B-sides, "Oklahoma Morning" and "Searching for the Morning Sun", are included. Once again, this is a Best of, not a Greatest hits.GREATEST HITS. That last sentence above no longer applies. All of the songs here were hits for Charley. However, enough time had passed since volume 3 of "Best of..." that he had charted more than 11 hits, so some didn't make the cut. Those were "I'll Be Leaving Alone", "More to Me", "You Almost Slipped My Mind" and "You Win Again". (I can understand the omission of the last of those, as the fact that only one of Charley's two hits from his Hank Williams tribute album was included was to be expected)I am not criticizing the song selection here. I have read reviews of other hit collections by other reviewers, and know that there is a tendency to take issue if favorite songs are left off. My goal was to explain what's not here and what's in its place. There are some very inclusive hit collections on Charley Pride out there. If you own one of those, and don't own as many of these fine 4-packs as I do, there will be some good songs here you may not have discovered, along with quite a few songs that have become old friends.

Country Charlie Pride a singer with a booming voice.This is the most outstanding collection of His music you can buy alot of songs that are hard to fine.Recommended to everyone who's a Charlie Pride or County Music Fan!

As an overview of this great artist, you cannot beat this. Four greatest hits albums, all documented, great quality containing 44 tracks of country gold, at a great price. Of course, an import. If you like sixties and seventies country, and this great artist, this is the one!

Great series of cd’s

I had forgotten how many great hits that Charley had---

Good sound

Item arrived on time. CD ok. Case craced.

It Is Great And I Cannot Wait To See If Charlie Releases Another Disc Of His Old Albums.

Most of the songs I grew up with and still enjoyable but not sure about the 2nd disc but looking at other options this one is still the best of his greatest hits, very happy

This was ordered in Saturday and came the next day great service bought one set for a friendThank you

This is a marvellous compilation of the work of Charlie Pride, the great country singer, who have sadly recently lost. Highly recommended.

Just charlie at his best.

We have always listened to Charley Pride and have many of record on Vinyl,