Shout Factory
2006
Secret Agent Man - The Ultimate Johnny Rivers Anthology 1964-2006
About This Album
While this two-CD collection does include all but one of his Top 40 hits, it's not quite the ultimate Johnny Rivers anthology, nor is it even the best double-CD "best of" devoted to the man. That honor still belongs to Rhino's Anthology, 1964-1977, a preferable compilation if you can find it. While almost all of Rivers' big, popular hits are on disc one of Secret Agent Man, most of disc two is devoted to tracks from obscure post-1990 releases, long after Rivers had last visited the charts. That wouldn't be such a problem if these recordings were on par with those from his commercial prime, but while they're okay for the most part, very few Rivers fans would consider the cuts among his best work. To be blunt, if you added the first couple songs off of disc two (the mid-'70s hits "Help Me Rhonda" and "Swayin' to the Music (Slow Dancin')") to disc one, and cut off everything else, you could call it a single-disc best of and no one would notice that anything was missing.

There are no complaints about the 1964-1973 material on disc one, on which one hit partying update of an oldie follows another, with occasional interruptions by songs Rivers first popularized, particularly "Summer Rain," "Poor Side of Town," and "Secret Agent Man.
Track List

Disc 1 (try tracks 6,10,14,17 and 18)

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Disc 2 (try tracks 1,2,3,14 and 16)

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