As a country music figure, Haggard is best known for his hard-drinking hits of the '60s ("Swinging Doors" "The Bottle Let Me Down") and icons like "Mama Tried" and "Okie From Muskogee." He continued to chart in the '70s with feisty tunes like "Fightin' Side of Me," but at the same time the decade found him exploring more sentimental songs like "If We Make it Through December." By the early '80s he'd moved from Capitol to MCA to Epic where he hit with songs like "Big City" and "Pancho and Lefty." And it's his 1980s tenure at Epic which is revisited on this collection.
Haggard's rocky road and irascible character provide a unique edge to his love songs. There's a sweetness to his ballads that reflects the respite that love so obviously provides him, and it's the contrast between hard-scrabble and tenderness that gives these songs their life. The Epic years were quite removed from his honky-tonk Bakersfield roots, yet the edges of Haggard's voice stake out sharp emotions among the soft productions of strings and piano. The sorrowfully hopeful Jimmy Dickens co-write "Shopping for Dresses" and the optimistic "Love Don't Hurt Every Time" both benefit from Haggard's deft vocal touch. More country-styled arrangements, such as "You Babe" and "Love Keeps Hanging On," are marked by '80s-styled instrumental choices, but Haggard's presence remains a powerful, steady center.
Jonny Whiteside's liner notes are informative, but they irritatingly refer to songs that should be - but aren't - included on this disc. Chief among them is the #1 hit, "That's the Way Love Goes." Overall this is an interesting way to slice Haggard's catalog, and though it provides neither a view of his overall epic catalog, nor a survey of his career arc's take on love, it does provide an insightful view of one side of his thinking through the 1980s.
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