Disco de Bellamy Brothers: “Angels & Outlaws Volume 1”

Even though their last big hit may have been "I Love Her Mind" in the 70's-80's,(with LET YOUR LOVE FLOW being their most famous) they have contunued to put out excellent albums, and finally this one. Most of these are from their earlier era of music, but do not disappoint. Excellent songs such as "Blue Rodeo", "Lonely Planet" , and "Vertical Expression (Of A Horizontal Desire), however are not included here. Except for one song, their foray into Island Influenced/reggae backbeats are also not here.

HOWEVER what is there is excellent. Being from Florida and loving John Anderson as a favorite, "Alligator Alley" is a great highlight. There duet with Alan Jackson, (You Ain't Just Whistlin' Dixie) needs to be played on radio, but unfortunately corporate radio only plays a limited base.

Montgomery Gentry fans will appreciate "Old Hippie", and the Dolly Parton cuts brings great mental pictures to mind. Nuff said there.

The appearance of Bobby Bare and David Allan Coe was a great surprise, and are very good cuts.

Only other drawback is some filler by newer artists, but they are not bad and are actually better than most.

The Bellamy Brothers can be described as "Old School Country MOR", write with a wry humor, and have imaginitive lyric hooks which they continue to issue even today.

The music makes me smile, its good time music. Its worth a listen.

I like the Bellamy Brothers' music and especially like this CD because it combines their voices with their guests - so you get to hear Howard and David AND singers like Dolly Partin and Alan Jackson. I love it!

Looking at the track listing, it is clear that this essentially a greatest hits package, but with various guests joining Howard and David singing re-recordings of their old hits. As such, the volume 1 appendage to the album title is intriguing. I know that the brothers had a long string of country hits but most of the really big ones are represented here.

As with any album that features a cast of guests, the tracks you like best will be generally influenced by who your favorite guests are as well as which songs you like best. So nobody will be surprised when I nominate the track featuring Dolly Parton as my favorite, but I was worried when I looked at the track listing prior to playing the CD. As things turned out, my worries were entirely unjustified, because Dolly's impish sense of humor made her ideal for the song If I said you have beautiful body. Dolly actually does most of the singing, but is ready with the quips to respond to the brothers, making the song a lot of fun as it should be, but avoiding the trap of descending into nonsense.

There are, of course, many other great tracks here. I particularly like You ain't just whistling Dixie (with Alan Jackson), Guardian angel (with Willie Nelson), Reggae cowboy (with Tanya Tucker and David Allan Coe), Kids of the baby boom (with Charlie Daniels and Bobby Bare) and Alligator alley (John Anderson) but everything here is fantastic so I won't be surprised if your favorites are among the songs I haven't listed.

Having delivered such a brilliant volume one, I'd love to hear volume two if it ever appears, but which songs will they select? Nobody knows, but I won't be holding my breath waiting to find out, since the Beach Boys only recorded one track for their intended Stars and stripes volume two, but enjoy volume one anyway.