Columbia Country Classics CDs

I purchased my first Columbia Country Classics CD years ago, in a bargain bin at some store in Aviation Mall in Glens Falls, NY, and I'm pretty sure it was Volume 4, The Nashville Sound.  At the time, I didn't know how many volumes there were (there are five), and I didn't know that there were also CD's in the Columbia Country Classics series devoted to single artists, of which I've since discovered three. 

Some,  but not all, of the CD's can still be purchased new, and all can be found if you look hard enough.  I thought it would be helpful to list the CD's here and provide what information I could.  The recordings are uniformly good, and each CD contains very informative liner notes. 

The 5-volume Columbia Country Classics compilations consist of the following:

1. The Golden Age.  27 tracks, starting with The Carter Family's "Can The Circle Be Unbroken," and ending with Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, & The Foggy Mountain Boys' "Don't Get Above Your Raisin'."  The roots of country music are well represented here, and include songs by Gene Autry, Molly O'Day & The Cumberland Mountain Folks, and Roy Acuff & His Smokey Mountain Boys.
2. Honky Tonk Heroes.  27 tracks, starting with Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys doing "Brain Cloudy Blues," and ending with Carl Butler performing, "Don't Let Me Cross Over."  Songs by artists such as Carl Smith, Marty Robbins, Lefty Frizzell, and Ray Price.
3. Americana.  25 tracks, beginning with Fess Parker's "Ballad of Davy Crockett," and finishing with Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson performing, "Highwayman."  Some novelty songs, like Johnny Western's "The Ballad of Paladin," but also some great songs, like "El Paso," by Marty Robbins, and "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," by The Charlie Daniels Band.
4. The Nashville Sound.  26 tracks, opening with "I Still Miss Someone," by Johnny Cash, and closing with "Would You Lay With Me (In a Field of Stone)" by Tanya Tucker.  In between, you'll find songs like "Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash, and "A Picture Of Me (Without You)" by George Jones. 
5. A New Tradition.  It's easier to look back to figure out where you've been than to look around and figure out where you are, which is what Columbia tried to do with this final volume.  The CD contains 23 tracks, starting with Johnny Cash singing "Daddy Sang Bass" - not Mr. Cash's best song, in my humble opinion - and finishing, aptly enough, with Rosanne Cash performing her significantly more memorable, "Seven Year Ache."  There are more than enough great songs to justify owning this CD, such as Willie Nelson's "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" and Marty Robbins' "El Paso City," and some decent songs, such as Moe Bandy's "Hank Williams, You Wrote My Life."  And then there are three songs that were included presumably to make country music look "cool" and "with it;" these tracks are Bob Dylan's "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight," The Byrds' "Hickory Wind," and Poco's "Pickin' Up the Pieces." 

In addition to the 5-volume set, I've also come across single-artist compilation CD's that say "Columbia Country Classics" at the bottom of the cover.  These are:

• The Essential Bob Wills: 1935-1947.
• The Essential Carl Smith: 1950-1956.
• The Essential Ray Price: 1951-1962.

There is some duplication between the 5-volume compilation and the single artist CD's; for example, Carl Smith's "Hey Joe!' and "I Overlooked an Orchid" are on Honky Tonk Heroes, and also on The Essential Carl Smith.  But each of the single artist CD's have 20 tracks, so they can still be regarded as good buys.