Anne Murray Album: “The Best...So Far”

Distilled from the exhaustive 3CD set "Now and Forever," Anne Murray's "The Best...So Far" lives up to its title. It gleans some of the best pop/country crossover hits from one of music's most distinctive, reliable voices.

Influenced as much by the blue-eyed soul of Dusty Springfield and by 50s pop singers like Patti Page as folk or country, Murray conveys emotion and drama with minimal histrionics. Her versions of Kenny Loggins' "Danny's Song" and "A Love Song" are calm and reassuring where their author's vocals were Seventies singer-songwriter sweet.

Murray's 1978-81 string of hits ("Broken Hearted Me," "Could I Have This Dance," the elegant "You Needed Me") preserved adult MOR in years dominated by hard rock and disco ("You Needed Me" was Top 10 with "Boogie Oogie Oogie," and "Kiss You All Over"). She gives the same essential country/rock feel to the Beatles' "You Won't See Me" and to Jo Stafford's "Make Love To Me," recorded 20 years apart, hitting the mark each time.

Some song choices are contestable; her take of the Everlys' "Walk Right Back" would have been preferable to David Foster's "Now and Forever," as outdated musically as "A Little Good News" is lyrically (these days, few people watch Bryant Gumbel talk about anything). But overall, "The Best...So Far" is the Anne Murray collection to get for casual fans, summing her greatest hits in a portrait of what Carole King called "a very thorough professional." Highly recommended.

This collection of 18 of her biggest hits plus 2 more recently released tracks provides a great introduction to her music. If you wore out her original hits compilations, this CD is the perfect replacement of her previous collections as it contains the entire "Greatest Hits" album from 1980, which remains the best 10 song compilation of her music, several highlights from "Greatest Hits Vol. 2," such as "Now and Forever," "A Little Good News," "Time Don't Run Out on Me," "Blessed Are The Believers," etc. This collection also features "Make Love To Me" off of her Croonin' CD and a previously unreleased track, Over You, which features Anne's style and beautiful voice. Every song on this CD is great and is a must buy.

I absolutely loved this fabulous CD from Anne Murray. It contains every single one of her classic hits. It is truly Anne Murray at her best. A MUST HAVE for any Anne Murray fan!

Anne Murray's best album is right here. There is no doubt about that this is the best album that is ever produced in the entire Anne Murray's career in music and she is still running strongly in this music industry. Again, it is extremely difficult not to get involved deeply in this album.

This is a very good compilation of Anne's pop hits, but unfortunately once again two of her best have been omitted: "Walk Right Back" and "Lucky Me". While both were country hits, they nonetheless crossed over to the pop charts and enjoyed considerable success as pop singles, just like "Danny's Song", "Could I Have This Dance", "Blessed Are The Believers" and "Another Sleepless Night". There is an album of all Anne's hits out there, and hopefully someday soon amazon.com will stock it. Until they do, hold off on your purchase. Unless of course, you can't wait -- then buy both!