Then & Now: The Hits Collection

Product Review

There are 17 songs in this hits collection. I re-recorded 14 of my past hits, included the original version of "Paint Me A Birmingham," and recorded two brand new songs. In making this record, I got the chance to study myself as a vocalist and as a person. I listened to what I did with "Sticks And Stones" all the way through what I did with "Paint Me A Birmingham." It was pretty educational to go back through 14 years of my life and pick myself apart. I learned a lot about myself.

We were intent on recapturing the magic for this CD. I wanted the cuts to be as close sonically to the original recordings as we could make them. We matched tempos, snare sounds and guitar licks--everything. I even sang along with the originals to try to get my phrasing as close as possible. We did all that we could, short of stepping back in time, to get as close to reliving the moments those records were recorded.

We worked with a lot of the same players that played on my original recordings. We talked about the studios we played in. We cut up and reminisced about all of the good times on the road during those years. We talked about the path my music had traveled with different producers. I could hear my growth and I could hear the strain in my voice during the times when there was pain in my life. It brought it all back to life for me. In a lot of ways I found the whole process healthy and therapeutic.

Amazon.com

Country's honey-voiced hopeless romantic gleans his career with this satisfying collection featuring rerecordings of 14 hits, his original version of "Paint me a Birmingham," and two new numbers. He's made fresh gold with "Used to the Pain," which sounds like a classic Tracy Lawrence ballad, full of regret over a heartbroken past, yet dappled with hope for the future. There's also "If I Don't Make It Back," a sentimental male-bonding story of a departing soldier's words to his buddies with a tearjerker ending. The older tunes, like "Birmingham" and "Today's Lonely Fool," stand time's test, as does the undiminished emotional palette of Lawrence's voice. Although most of these numbers are sad or starry-eyed honky-tonk, the set ends with the rowdy "If the Good Die Young," a rocker with the kickin' line "I'm gonna live forever if the good die young." But with more #1 hits than Glen Campbell, Ernest Tubb, and a host of other legends, Lawrence has already attained his own brand of longevity. --Ted Drozdowski

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