RCA Country Legends

1	I'm Movin' On 2:51
2	(Now and Then There's) A Fool Such as I 2:31
3	The Golden Rocket 2:47
4	Let Me Go Lover 2:27
5	Mississippi River Blues 2:30
6	My Nova Scotia Home 2:32
7	Miller's Cave 2:42
8	A Good Gal Is Hard to Find 2:59
9	I Don't Hurt Anymore 2:58
10	I've Been Everywhere 2:47
11	I Almost Lost My Mind 3:08
12	Confused With the Blues 2:58
13	Ninety Miles an Hour (Down a Dead End Street) 2:38
14	Southern Cannonball 2:12
15	Big Wheels 2:16
16	Hello Love 2:44

Barnes & Noble

It could be argued that no artist balanced country music history and a prescient sense of the future better than the late Canadian singer Hank Snow, who started singing in the early 1930s and didn't stop until 1994. Though he was prim and proper in appearance and singing style, when he got into an up-tempo number, all hell broke loose. There was no rock 'n' roll in 1950 when he cut "I'm Moving On" and the barn-burning "The Golden Rocket," but the Singing Ranger clearly heard it coming. At the same time, he had few peers when it came to putting across a ballad with powerful, deep feeling -- witness his bluesy take on Ivory Joe Hunter's "I Almost Lost My Mind," and the soulful crooning he uses to put the hurt on "(Now and Then, There's) A Fool Such as I" (the Elvis connection is all over Snow's career). Never forgetting his roots, he honored his inspiration, Jimmie Rodgers, with two tribute albums, two cuts from which are on this first-rate anthology. Sixteen tracks, all of them choice, duly honoring a great artist's exemplary life's work. David McGee

All Music Guide

Hank Snow hailed from Canada and had already had success in his native home before breaking big on the country charts in the United States in 1950 with "I'm Moving On." RCA Country Legends covers 16 Snow favorites recorded between 1950 and 1978, concentrating most heavily on his straight honky tonk work of the 1950s. His arrangements frequently include steel guitar, a walking bass, fiddle, and Snow's fine acoustic guitar work. Snow is a good singer, and while his vocals are less rustic than Webb Pierce's, they nonetheless retain plenty of country twang on "Golden Rocket" and "Confused with the Blues." Snow also brings his resonant vocals to bear on a number of fine, deeply felt ballads including "(Now and Then There's) A Fool Such as I," "I Don't Hurt Anymore," and "Let Me Go, Lover." If RCA Country Legends has a weak point, it is the inclusion of Snow's popular but inferior post-'50s work, frequently with Chet Atkins producing. While Snow retains his distinct vocal style, and while songs like "Miller's Cave" were big hits, Atkins' Nashville sheen, complete with cheesy background singers, removes any sign of country grit. For fans looking for a broad overview of Snow's career, RCA Country Legends is a good starting point; for honky tonk purists, the collection mistakenly reveals Snow at his best, only to undercut this impression with second-rate work. Ronnie D. Lankford Jr.