The Very Best

With a guitar style so innovative that it has its own name (Travis picking), a comfortable, warm voice, and considerable skills as a songwriter, Merle Travis was a triple-threat performer, merging folk and country with jazz and swing textures, all rolled into a comfortable, down-home populist tone. This collection features live performances drawn from the Jimmy Wakely Radio Show in the mid-'50s, and while it is titled The Very Best of Merle Travis, it really isn't, with only "16 Tons" (a huge crossover hit for Tennessee Ernie Ford in 1955) falling into the "best-of" category. That said, this is a charming set of tunes, with the live setting giving Travis a little room to stretch out and improvise on guitar (he was playing electric by this point in his career), and the radio format is perfect for letting loose his natural good old boy charm. The sound quality is clear and uncluttered, making this an ideal compilation for die-hard Travis collectors. It isn't, however, the place to start for the casual listener. One of the tracks here, the instrumental "Bye Bye Blues," was recorded two decades later, in 1976, and for some reason was inserted in the running order.