Track Listing

1. Humpty Dumpty Heart
2. Whoa, Sailor
3. Swing Wide Your Gate of Love
4. Wild Side of Life
5. Wake Up, Irene
6. Cryin' in the Deep Blue Sea
7. Fooler, a Faker
8. Wildwood Flower [Instrumental]
9. Honky Tonk Girl
10. How Cold Hearted Can You Get
11. This Train
12. Yesterday's Girl
13. New Green Light
14. Big Beaver [Instrumental]
15. Total Stranger
16. Six Pack to Go
17. Drivin' Nails in My Coffin
18. I Cast a Lonesome Shadow
19. Too in Love
20. Oklahoma Hills

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30659 in Music
• Released on: 1996-06-11
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Amazon.com
Best known for 1951's "The Wild Side of Life," Thompson wed prewar Western swing to postwar honky-tonk and created a sound that proved viable both on the radio (where swing was usually ignored) and in the dance halls. He kept it up with a steady string of hits that included beer-drinking ballads, heart songs, folkish material, and flat-out novelties; though he plied a distinctly Texas sound, he was never shy about looking to the Southeast for material. His bands, often joined in the studio by guitarist Merle Travis, framed his vocals perfectly without ever taking the spotlight off the singer (and also cut instrumental hits such as "Wildwood Flower" on their own). With 20 tracks, this is the best single-CD sampler of Thompson's early work. --John Morthland

Customer Reviews

Sing, Shout & Swing!
I set my CD player on the front porch last summer, and this CD spent more time in it than any other! This is classic stuff, folks, but some of the best cuts on the album may be tracks you're not familiar with. Wake Up, Irene and Total Stranger make me grin every time I hear the lyrics. For those of you who remember how to dance to REAL western swing, there is the rollicking instrumental version of Wildwood Flower. Hank's roadhouse voice, hot band and tight arrangements are the perfect accompaniments to porch dancing with your best guy or gal. This album gets the rodeo queen salute!

Thompson/ the heart of man
Thompsons music is truely a dream. Nursery rymes in a Honk-Tonk, only he could do it with style ! I have loved him from childhood and am glad to see I can still find his music and it fits as good today as it did 30 years ago.

Akin to a religious experience
My son gave this album to me, his 69 year old father, and hearing Hank's warm, natural, soothing voice bridged the span of years from 1953 when I first heard it overseas in Japan, and 2001 as though they were but a moment in time. I was transported to the year 1953, was 22 and memorizing every word on his album Capitol H418, Songs of the Brazos Valley. What a great pleasure to know he is still bringing his music to yet another generation in yet another century! His lyrics reveal, without preaching, a standard and quality of life we would all benefit by emulating.