Razor & Tie
1995
Good Ol' Boy: His Greatest Hits
About This Album
Released the same year as Varese's The Best of Joe Stampley, Razor & Tie's Good Ol' Boy: His Greatest Hits compliments the other label's collection. Where Varese's 18-track disc focuses on Stampley's early-'70s recordings for Dot/ABC, this concentrates on his late-'70s/early-'80s work for Epic. The two discs share a mere four tracks -- the Dot singles "If You Touch Me (You've Got to Love Me)," "All These Things," and "Soul Song" and the Epic-era Moe Bandy duet "Just Good Ol' Boys" -- so they have considerably different feels, and ironically enough, the album covers do not offer a clear indication of which era is covered where, since the Varese features a contemporary photo and it's all old material, while Razor & Tie boasts an older photo and new recordings. Phew! The two taken together provide a full picture of Stampley's career as a hitmaker, but as individual collections they can be problematic, since the Varese doesn't have as many big hits but does have better music (and, unfortunately, is now out of print), while the Razor & Tie has the big hits (including four duets with Bandy) but runs out of musical steam about halfway through, as the '70s give way to the '80s and Stampley turns toward slicker, pop-inflected production.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,5,6,8,11,13,14,17 and 18)

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