I recently started to listen to Don William's music, and I've quickly become an enormous fan. Don possesses one of the smoothest voices in country music history, and he wrapped his golden voice around some great songs. Fortunately, a number of greatest hits collections are available. However, I was interested in purchasing some of his studio CDs. I thought that "Good Ole Boys" fit that ticket, but I was completely wrong.
I'm not sure what the intent of this collection is, other than throwing together various odds and ends for a quick buck. No liner notes are included with this CD, so the listener is left to guess about some of the music. Songs 2-9 seem to consist of Don's early music. Several of the songs, such as "Storybook Children," are duets with a female partner, but without liner notes I have no idea who the woman is. In addition, the sound quality of these songs is extremely poor.
Finally, the two big country hits included here are "Good Ole Boys Like Me" (#2 for 3 weeks in 1980) and "I Believe in You" (#1 for 2 weeks in 1980). However, these two songs are live versions! They sound fine as far as live cuts go, but there was no indication that they're live, and they sound completely out-of-place with the earlier studio songs. I had no idea when I purchased the collection what a motley assortment of music it would be. Don and his fans deserve better than this quickie package, even at such a low price. Definitely not recommended.
It's a frustrating experience for anyone who enjoyed Don Williams' music back in the day to replace old worn out albums / cassettes with CDs. Most of the early albums are now out of print with the only option being "Greatest Hits" sets and other compilations featuring lesser known tracks. Naturally no one set will have every song you may be searching for. So one finds themself buying obscure CDs like this one looking for a song or two to add to their collection.
The other person who reviewed this disc hit the nail on the head. Three live tracks recorded God knows when mixed in with seven tracks from Don's days with the Pozo Seco Singers.
Anyone looking for a CD featuring a nice sampling of Don's wonderful music will be sorely disappointed. While there's nothing wrong with the music recorded by Pozo Seco, it's not the Don Williams most of us are familiar with. For one thing it's much more pop oriented and much less country.
A final insult is that the cover for this CD lists the songs "Ruby Tuesday" and "Tulsa Time" which are on the import version with the same title but not on this version. Don't waste your money on this one.
