Disco de Kenny Rogers: “Through the Years: A Retrospective [Box]”

Descripción (en inglés) :

Full title: Through The Years: A Retrospective. <p>THROUGH THE YEARS: A RETROSPECTIVE includes several unreleased tracks and rarities. Contains 80 tracks. <p>All tracks have been digitally remastered. <p>The thorough, four-disc THROUGH THE YEARS: A RETROSPECTIVE may be a bit daunting for the casual listener who just wants Kenny Rogers's best-known songs (the single-disc 20 GREATEST HITS is good for that), but it's essential listening for all other Rogers fans. The second and third discs collect all of the biggest solo and duet hits and Rogers's most-loved material, while the fourth disc covers his finest songs from the mid-1980s through the '90s. However, it's the first disc that's of the greatest interest. Besides functioning as an excellent best-of compilation of Rogers's underrated country-pop group, the First Edition, this disc includes many songs from Rogers's early Texas bands, most of them folk-rock tunes never before available on CD, and all of them surprisingly worthwhile examples of his pre-stardom journeyman years. Hearing this material ties together the seemingly disparate elements Rogers's long and impressive career.

Four-and-a-half hours is probably more Kenny Rogers than the average fan needs, but this 4-disc retrospective is the most comprehensive collection available to date.

Disc-1: All but the die-hard fans will be unfamiliar with the first twelve tracks recorded between 1956-66. These tracks are mostly of historical value and show Rogers working in a variety of styles (doo-wop, jazz, big band) both as a solo and with The Scholars and The Bobby Doyle Three. It is with "Just Dropped In"--The First Edition's quasi-psychedelic 1968 hit--that the material becomes more familiar. The rest of the disc includes the rest of that group's hits with the glaring omission of 1970's "Heed the Call." [Also worth noting is that these are all original recordings. Capitol Records has negotiated licensing agreements with Reprise, United Artists and Liberty, something that was NOT done with earlier compilations like Ten Years of Gold, Twenty Greatest Hits, and 20 Great Years which occasionally resorted to rerecording some of these songs.]

Disc-2: Rogers achieved superstar status in the Seventies. Each one of these songs peaked at No. 1 on the country chart. All but seven of them also placed in the Top 40 on the pop charts--including two No. 1 pop hits: "Lady" and his duet with Dolly Parton, "Islands in the Stream."

Disc 3: While not packed with hits like disc-2, all but two of the songs on this third disc ("While the Feeling's Good" and "The Greatest Gift of All") charted in the Top 40 on the country and/or pop chart, including one of Rogers' rare songwriting credits on "Sweet Music Man."

Disc-4: By the mid-Eighties, Rogers was no longer the guaranteed hit machine that he had been for the past decade. Only four of these songs went Top 10--all on the country chart--but these are all solid performances. And despite 1991's "If You Want To Find Love" being the most recent charting single on this box set, the final chapter on Rogers' career is yet to be written.

While this box is a bit pricey, it's the only way to show the breadth and depth of his career. RECOMMENDED