Roger Miller Album: “20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Roger Miller”

Make no mistake. Roger Miller, born on January 2, 1936 in Fort Worth, Texas was, first and foremost, a Country artist with 42 hits on those charts from 1960 to 1986, and who had the added benefit of seeing 15 of those cross over to the Billboard Pop Hot 100, another four to the Hot 100 "bubble under" charts, and 12 make the Adult Contemporary (AC) charts from 1965 to 1973. Unfortunately, he passed away at age 56 on October 25, 1992 - three years before he was finally honoured by the Country Music Hall of Fame.

This release in the massive 20th Century Masters' The Millenium Collection, which started to flood the market about eight or nine years ago, is, like most in the series, merely a teaser, although they do provide his first ten Hot 100 cross-overs along with one B-side (Atta Boy Girl which backed King Of The Road - # 1 AC for TEN weeks/# 1 Country for FIVE weeks/# 4 Hot 100 in early 1965), and an album cut (In The Summertime from the 1964 Smash LP The Return Of Roger Miller). Better choices, which would have resulted in a boost to 4 stars in my opinion, would have been Walkin' In The Sunshine (# 6 AC/# 7 Country/# 37 Hot 100 in May 1967) and Little Green Apples (# 5 AC/# 6 Country/# 39 Hot 100 in April 1968).

The sound quality is, as usual with this series, very good and, unlike some releases, this one gives you two pages of background notes written by Joseph F. Laredo in a fold-out insert that also features a nice photo of Roger and a partial discography of the contents. The latter does not, however, give you the chart performances of the 10 hits included so I have provided them for your information. In addition to King Of The Road, mentioned above, these are: Dang Me (# 1 Country for SIX weeks/# 7 Hot 100 in summer 1964); Chug-A-Lug (# 3 Country/# 9 Hot 100 in fall 1964); Do-Wacka-Do (# 15 Country/# 31 Hot 100 in December 1964); Engine Engine # 9 (# 2 AC and Country/# 7 Hot 100 in June 1965); One Dyin' And A Buryin' (# 8 AC/# 10 Country/# 34 Hot 100 in August 1965); Kansas City Star (# 3 AC/# 7 Country/# 31 Hot 100 in October 1965); England Swings (# 1 AC/# 3 Country/# 8 Hot 100 in December 1965); Husbands And Wives (# 2 AC/# 5 Country/# 26 Hot 100 in March 1966); and You Can't Roller Skate In A Buffalo Herd (# 17 AC/# 35 Country/# 40 Hot 100 in July 1966).

I found this collection to be very disappointing in that it's 100% mono. One can argue that in some cases, the mono mix sounds more like the original hit song as heard in the mid-1960s, but to me, several of the Roger Miller hits are better in stereo (particularly "England Swings" and "Little Green Apples").

Also, Miller only had 12 Top 40 American hits, but this collection omits two -- "Walkin' in the Sunshine" and "Little Green Apples" -- and replaces them with relatively-minor songs like "Atta Boy Girl" and "In the Summertime."

You gotta wonder who is handling Mercury's reissue department these days. Instead of this collection, my advice is that you find the previous Mercury collections "The Best of Roger Miller - Vol. 1: Country Tunesmith" and "The Best of Roger Miller - Vol. 2: King of the Road," which are far superior. Most of their tracks are in stereo, too.

There are only 2 songs on here that I don't love. The rest are all the up beat cheerful/quirky tunes he does so well.

Country legend Roger Miller is at his best in this CD.

All of his greatest hits are here. Sound quality is just ok.

This is the best 1 CD collection that I've seen so far from Roger Miller, since my old RM's Greatest Hits album on Smash Records. Its got the funny ones ("Dang Me, Can't Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd") and the mid tempo swingers ("England Swings, Engine, Engine #9) and my favorite, "One Dying & A Burying." This to me is pure American music, country based, with a good pop sensibility. A great collection of songs that doesn't stay out of rotation very long!