Johnny Horton Album: “Johnny Horton's Greatest Hits”

1 Whispering Pines 2 Mansion You Stole, The 3 I'm Ready, If You're Willing 4 When It's Springtime In Alaska (It's Forty Below) 5 All For The Love Of A Girl 6 Comanche (The Brave Horse) 7 Jim Bridger 8 Johnny Freedom

Johnny Horton died young, the victim of an automobile accident. His death brought to an abrupt end the beginning of what could have been one of the greatest music careers that ever was. This album reflects some of the marks he made on the world of Country Music.

Unfortunately, when this was originally released, there were twelve cuts, now there are only eight. I guess the others weren't great, for instance, they left out, "The Battle of New Orleans", one of the most outstanding hits in the history of the music, "North To Alaska", and "When It's Springtime in Alaska", two of the most definitive changes in his style as he began to leave the historical area and venture into the world of love and feeling; "Sink The Bismark" and "Johnny Reb", two of the songs most representative of his historical era. Why is it that Columbia Records feels that they have to cut the amounts of songs down through the years just because the business, as it stands today, usually releases only eight cuts. It doesn't cost them any more; all their costs were recovered in the first twenty or so releases of this album; it's just plain greed.

With my "bitching" aside, I can still say that any Country and Western or late 50's rock enthusiast would love the album.

The songs that were kept true to country style, in the memory of Hank, are "Whispering Pines", and "The Mansion You Stole", and "All For The Love of a Girl"; each of these reflects the true country nature of it's artist.

The "Historical Hitmakers" are here, as well, thus, fulfilling the dream of the complete Johnny Horton Sound.

This album is worth the bucks. All his greatest hits are here and sound as fresh as they did when they were recorded. "Battle of New Orleans' amd 'Whispering Pines' are two of my favourites.

Horton died 9 years before I was born. I remember listening to my parent's copy of "Battle of New Orleans" and "Sink the Bismark" when I was a kid and loved it.

I picked up this CD a couple years ago so I could listen to my old childhood favorites. Besides the two songs above, I had never really heard Horton's other songs. But this entire CD is good! It's a breath of fresh air to hear someone sing about history and the frontier instead of the exclusive focus on sex and relationships of today's pop music/contemporary country.

From the earnest refrains of "Johnny Reb" to the wry humor of "Springtime in Alaska" and the swinging rythm of "Honky Tonk Man" this CD offers a lot of variety.

I don't give a lot of 5-star reviews and am mainly a fan of heavy metal but Horton is classic and timeless and 100% American.

For the person who is completely unfamiliar with Johnny Horton (whoever that might be anyway), this is THE PLACE to get started out. While this does overlook his early hits (Mean, Mean Son of A Gun, One Woman Man, Sal's Got A Sugarlip), it does give what most fans remember Johnny for-"Battle of New Orleans", "North To Alaska", etc. Sound quality is stellar on this package. This is the perfect intro to the man & his music.

When I was younger, my father had a cassette with all of these songs on them, but my mother sold it in a garage sale. Of course I was upset when I looked for it years later, and I was so excited to find this CD! I remembered all the songs and still listen to it frequently. I couldn't be more satisfied.