Dim Lights, Thick Smoke & Hillbilly Music: Country & Western Hit Parade - 1968 - CD

Various: Dim Lights, Thick Smoke & Hillbilly Music: Country & Western Hit Parade - 1968 version on CD in Standard edition. This particular edition was published in Germany in publishing company Bear Family Records on 24. September 2013.

After the release of the 1945-1965 CDs, the information spread: this series is perfect, everything is spectacularly equipped and perfectly remastered. In short: exactly as you would expect from the Bear Family! We now conclude the series with the years 1966 to 1970, a total of a quarter of a century of the best country music. Jack Clement, who produced Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Waylon Jennings, Don Williams, Charley Pride, and many others, said, "This is the best country series of all time, no doubt about it." Robert Hilburn in the Los Angeles Times wrote: "An invaluable project that allows fans to go back in time and listen to music as it was on the radio, as Elvis Presley, Ray Charles and Bob Dylan did." Country Music Hall of Fame producer Allen Reynolds (Garth Brooks, Emmylou Harris and others) took Richard Weize of Bear Family aside and praised him for the series. The series runs from 1966 to 1970. Each CD is packed to the brim, and each of the extensive booklets is crammed with rare photos and illustrations, as well as background information on all the songs! The *hits are complemented by rarities that influenced country music - and music in general - in the years that followed. This series was created to introduce new listeners to the best that country music has to offer and to entertain knowledgeable fans. Each episode is a journey through time. "Dimmed Lights... delivers an anarchic blend of sex and sentiment, heartfelt paeans to family life and soaring tales of boozing and cheating - and provides a fascinating look at the "either/or" controversies of the 1950s....Established stars and would-be inspirations serve up a heady mix of honky tonk dancing, hillbilly boogie, bluegrass, western swing, nascent rockabilly, slightly silly novelties and shamrock ballads." ("Uncut") The reviews are in, and critics from Australia to Los Angeles to London are praising the chronologically ordered Bear Family series. The book Dim Lights, Thick Smoke, And Hillbilly Music (Country & Western Hit Parade) begins in 1945 and documents the real history of country music record by record. Sure, all the hits are there, but that's just one page. Because this series goes much further than mere chart entries and also features groundbreaking releases that flopped in their day but still showed the way for future generations. This is music that influenced the White Stripes, Gillian Welch, Gram Parsons, Nick Cave, the Beatles and many others. In other words, this is the true and unbiased history of country music. All the things you just had to hear, year after year and as they happened. This new package, which picks up the story from 1966 and continues through 1970, contains too many original versions of classic hits to list here - check out the track listing! But the series also includes underrated classics and near-hits like Gram Parsons' recordings with the International Submarine Band and the Byrds, George Jones' oft-neglected Beneath Still Waters (later a #1 hit for Emmylou Harris), Charlie Louvin's haunting classic Will You Visit Me On Sundays, Roger Miller's original versions of Me And Bobby McGee and Little Green Apples, Jim Alley's ultra-rare original Only Daddy That'll Walk The Line, and more! It doesn't stop there! Each CD includes an extremely detailed 72-page booklet with song stories, rare photos, label illustrations and full discographical information. In those years, covered in the final part of the series, American society was probably even more polarized than it is today. Vietnam, the civil rights movement, and the cultural and stylistic revolution of the 1960s created an unpredictable political and cultural atmosphere. Some returned to country's hillbilly roots, others enthusiastically embraced the new developments with songs like Gentle On My Mind, By The Time I Get To Phoenix, Ode To Billie Joe, and so on. Others attempted a fusion of then-current rock styles with traditional country music. It was an explosive time and the music largely reflects it. Dim Lights, Thick Smoke, And Hillbilly Music ends on an extremely high note. Review , "It's no exaggeration to say: it doesn't get any better than this!" (Good Times, December 2013 / January 2014)

Album spans genres Folk, World, & Country and Country.