Time-Life's Singers and Songwriters — Phase Three [2002-2005]

By 2001, Time-Life Music had issued sixteen albums in The Singers & Songwriters Collection, in addition to two early prototypical sets (Singers & Songwriters and Our Songs) and two retail samplers (Singers and Songwriters and Classics). More albums from the series were released in 2002, along with a subset of albums within the series. Read on to learn all about them.

The seventeenth album in The Singers & Songwriters Collection focuses on the years 1973-1975. Linda Ronstadt covering her former backing band's "Desperado" feels right within the Singers & Songwriters universe, but the tracks from Blue Swede, Paper Lace, and Bo Donaldson feel out of place. Sure, they fit the timeline, but I challenge anyone who says any of those three songs give them a singer/songwriter vibe. These songs, which I enjoy immensely, simply do not belong in this series. Three deeper cuts from Janis Ian, Carole King, and Harry Chapin help to restore this album's reputation and earn it three full stars.

We are sometimes challenged to judge compilations with titles that use the words lost, forgotten, or hard to find. Of the twenty-four tracks listed, we played five of them on The Drive with some regularity, but we prided ourselves on playing "the songs you forgot you loved". When I checked Mediabase for this write-up, almost none of the tracks on Hard-To-Find Hits are getting any airplay today because they simply were not ever that popular to begin with. The Hits in title of Hard-To-Find Hits is a misnomer. A better title would have been Deep Cuts or even Deeper Cuts. Two stars.

The title of The Very Best Of Singers And Songwriters is straightforward and to the point. The 2002 single disc is a collection of tracks previously included on the Singers & Songwriters albums pictured on its cover. The third retail sampler for the series may be the best one yet. It is certainly packed with favorites of mine. Four and a half stars.

Also in 2002, Time-Life Music offered the first boxed set of Singers & Songwriters discs in an eleven-disc set titled Singers And Songwriters. The set includes five previously-released double-disc sets (1970-1971, 1972-1973, 1974-1975, 1976-1977, and 1978-1979) along with the previously released retail-only single-disc Classics. The box is printed to look like a plain brown paper wrapped package, complete with images of tape and twine holding it all together. It's an excellent way to start your Singers & Songwriters collection. Four stars.

And then this happened. Continuing on from the R812 matrix that The Singers & Songwriters Collection had been using, I guess what we have here is an extension of that former series with a new name (The Folk Years) and a few recycled songs on Blowin' In The Wind. A handful of these songs stand out for me, including the final two songs on Disc Two, which I found really enjoyable. It's too Sixties, too folk. Giving Blowin' In the Wind too two and a half stars here. Next.

The twentieth disc in the main Singers & Songwriters/The Folk Years series is Yesterday's Gone. I failed to mention previously that these Folk Years discs have fifteen tracks per disc for a total of thirty. Once again, the track selection is too folk and too Sixties for this listener, though it does have a few more songs I like than Blowin' In The Wind does. Good enough to bump up to three stars on our exclusive six-star scale.

Reason To Believe has a little more country flavor than previous entries under The Folk Years banner with tracks from Roger Miller, George Hamilton IV, Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, and Glen Campbell. Still too folky and too Sixties for me. I would have returned these Folk Years discs without even taking the cellophane off of them. No thank you. Two and a half stars.

Simple Song Of Freedom gets three stars. Best one in the Folk Years subset. The Dylan/Band/Baez set that opens Disc One is some good stuff. On Disc Two, there is a similar three-fer interrupted by Roger Miller, but if you take him out, you've got three tasty tracks from Jerry Jeff Walker, Kris Kristofferson, and Van Morrison. Please let this be the last disc in the series so it can go out with a mild bang.

In addition to being made individually at retail, all four volumes of The Folk Years were boxed up in 2003 so you could jump in all at once across eight discs. And look at that, right there on the front cover, it says A Singers And Songwriters Collection. (Didn't buy it so no rating but you can draw your own conclusions from the ratings I gave the four volumes in the set.)

In 2003, Time-Life Music also boxed up three discs with tracks from The Singers & Songwriters Collection in a slim box they titled Singers And Songwriters Collection. The first disc was the previously released Classics disc, first issued in 2001, while the other two discs, 1970-1974 and 1975-1979, seem to be new single-disc compilations named after previously released double-disc compilations. It's a great more-than-a-sampler set. (Never picked it up so no rating.)

Just in time for Christmas 2003, Time-Life Music released the straightforward title Christmas Songs at retail channels under the Singers And Songwriters banner. Featuring two discs with a dozen tracks each, I do not have this disc in the HERChives as I write this. Pictured above is the single disc release of Christmas Songs featuring a folded down eighteen-song tracklist. I do not own this disc either.

Similar to what they had done above with The Singers & Songwriters Collection, in 2005 Time-Life Music also put together a three-disc set for The Folk Years subset and titled it The Folk Years. The first disc in the collection was also titled The Folk Years, while the other two new to the series discs were Blowin' In The Wind and Yesterday's Gone. All three discs feature eighteen tracks apiece. I did not pick this one up.

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And that was Phase Three of The Singers & Songwriters Collection from Time-Life Music. But wait...there's more! Join us for Time-Life's Singers and Songwriters — Bonus Discs [2007-2010] soon.