Wolf Moon Records
2005
The Essential Cris Williamson
About This Album
Although it sounds like a good idea, having an artist pick the songs for her own compilation sometimes can lead to unsatisfying results. Artists are likely to lean more heavily than fans would like on their more recent material; to exclude fan favorites about which they have idiosyncratic objections or are just bored with; and to include personal favorites that nobody ever liked but them. Add, in Cris Williamson's case, the situation that the artist, despite a successful career dating back to the mid-'60s, has never enjoyed a hit in the conventional sense, and the likelihood of a highly subjective compilation is compounded. It is therefore some relief to report that the two-hour-and-13-minute, two-CD collection The Essential Cris Williamson, the most comprehensive of four Williamson compilations to be released, is basically an excellent précis of the artist's extensive catalog. "Although I'm not certain these would be your essential Cris Williamson tunes," she writes, addressing her fervent fan base, "I am confident that these ones will represent in a good medicine way, songs which span more than 30 years of work." What omissions are those fans likely to note? First and foremost, the relative absence of tracks from Williamson's best-known album, The Changer and the Changed.
Track List

Disc 1 (try tracks 4,9,10,11 and 13)

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Disc 2 (try tracks 2 and 7)

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