Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0602517240179
Label: Lost Highway
Manufacturer: Lost Highway
MPN: 000853002
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Lost Highway
Release Date: 2007-03-20
Studio: Lost Highway

Let's be clear: Last of the Breed is a story - actually, a novel, if not an epic - unto itself. The title sums it up pretty well: On these two discs three classic performers, Ray Price, Willie Nelson, and Merle Haggard, band together on songs they've known and loved for years.

Their contributions don't need elaboration. Each is a legend. All three hark back to a time that's in some ways gone. When you consider the lives they've lived, the world that formed them as artists, and even the landscapes they knew as they began playing in beer joints and backwater clubs long ago, then the truth of those four words, Last of the Breed, comes clear.

Look a little closer, and they take on another reference, to the songs as well as to the giants who celebrate them here. Whether drawn from deep in the tradition, back from the well of Gene Autry, Lefty Frizzell, and Floyd Tillman, or picked from the more recent catalogs, this music conveys a feeling that might be mistaken for nostalgia but is in fact a timeless eloquence.

They don't write or sing `em like this anymore.
Once an Outlaw, later a Highwayman, now an elder statesman, Willie Nelson joins forces with Merle Haggard and Ray Price (both of whom have recorded duet albums with Nelson) in a celebration of the classic country song. Everything about this is defiantly old school, from the production by veteran Fred Foster and the musical support from steel guitarist Buddy Emmons and Texas Playboy fiddler Johnny Gimble and vocal backing from the Jordanaires to songs from the likes of Harlan Howard, Leon Payne, and Lefty Frizzell. For all of the artists' generational ties, their differences are what distinguish the project: Nelson is the reediest and most conversational vocalist, Haggard the bluesiest; and Price remains the quintessential countrypolitan crooner. Whether they're harmonizing on Mickey Newbury's "Sweet Memories" or trading verses on Howard's "Pick Me Up on Your Way Down," the vocal blend suggests old friends having the time of their musical lives. Guests include Vince Gill (on "Heartaches by the Number") and Kris Kristofferson (on his Why Me Lord"), but a trio like this doesn't need much outside assistance. --Don McLeese

Customer Rating:
Summary: Going through the motions
Comment: I had hoped for better (a lot better---if I weren't so disappointed, it probably would have been a 3). The material is OK, but it sounds like the performances were phoned in and these guys never actually sang *together* during the recording process.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Last of the Breed
Comment: An outstanding album by three men who are indeed, the "Last of the Breed".Ray Price is particularly impressive, when at 82 he can still hit those deep base notes that he made so popular 35 years ago. Willie's voice is starting to crack a little, but his guitar playing is still excellent. Merle Haggard has lost some of the outlaw approach he had and has mellowed enough to have improved in singing and personality. Back up by the Cherokee Cowboys, Asleep at The Wheel, and excellent support by Micky Raphael on the harmonica and others are simply supurb.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Turn back the pages of time.
Comment: This CD features three country music Hall of Famers singing old country songs (with one of two newer songs). That's about all you need to know. It's all very charming and old school. If you like old time country music, you will certainly enjoy this.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: REAL Country Music! Icons!!
Comment: It is so wonderful what these three giants of Country Mucic have done. Of course we've heard a lot over the years about Willie and Merle, but it seemed like no one ever heard of Ray Price. He was so long overlooked by a lot of people, and practically shunned by the know-alls in Nashville, because he was one of the first to bring strings into his band. Ultimately he was part of the genre who brought a new kind of country, called Nashville Sound, which saved country music as such. It was all going the way of rock and roll without the likes of Ray price. Don Gibson was another. Both of them my favorites. I can listen to a song by Ray and then one by Don and back and forth and I'm in hog heaven. It's hard for me to decide on a absolute favorite. Those two guys and several others are the main reason we have any kind of country today. The first song I actually fell in love with by Ray was "Night Life". I liked the earlier ones also, but Night Life grabbed me, and I never let go. That stuff you hear on the radio is NOT country music. I don't know what it should be called but I say it's more like "pop rock, screaming and yelling." Whoever can scream and yell and show off the most, wins first place. It isn't music. It's torture to my old ears.
I am so glad to see somebody else has heard of Ray Price other than myself. He was so long overlooked that I finally ended up joining his fan club just to get info about him. And Don, well, he set the course for himself, but the man was brilliant, despite having no education, having dropped out of school at the age of 8 (in the second grade). He just told his mama one day that school was boring, and he wasn't going back. I don't know why, and don't question why she didn't set her foot down and say "Don, get your butt back to school." Not too many years later, he wrote the song that has been recorded more than any other song in history, even more than God Bless America and White Christmas, over 700 times, and sold in the millions. Of course I speak of "I Can't Stop Loving You." Most likely, if he had stayed in school for the next 10 years or so, Ray Charles would still be a mystery to white people, and Don probably would have ended up a poor working fool at one of the many cotton mills around the area he and I are from; talk about sweat mills, they were that. My grandfather worked in one for 30 years or so and he never got rich. Barely able to live on the social security he ended up with. Don didn't work in one very long until he decided there had to be a better way to make a living.
I'm so happy for all three of the Old Breed, but especially so for Ray. He waited so long for some recognition. He spoke it best when he finally was enshrined into the Country Music Hall Of Fame, "It's About Time." And that was his acceptance speech. And so it was. That was 1996, some 40 years or more after he started in the business down in Texas, with Bob Wills and then Hank Williams. Those who call the shots in Nashville, obviously, don't know an awful lot about true country music, judging by the true country artists from years ago that are still not in the CMHOF, compared with some that have been inducted in the last 10 or 20 years. Wish I had the majority of the voting power. Not a one of those newer guys/gals would be enshrined before the older pioneers. Just last year there was Ralph Emery and Mel Tillis, and VINCE GILL. Give me a break. Vince Gill is great, but so were Ralph Emery for promoting country music for so many years, and Mel Tillis for singing and promoting and writing country music what seems like forever. Way long overdue. And there are so many more who have not had their places and contributions recognized by the people who run things there.
It ought'a be something like baseball's Hall of Fame: 5 years after a player has retired, he can be voted on for the HOF. I didn't say the SAME as baseball, but they could come up with some way of rewarding the older ones before rewarding newer ones. Like, to catch up, they could do more than 2 or 3 each year. The year they voted Don Gibson in, there were 11 other ones. Why not do that every year if they need to to get everyone in there from before it was established and to get the newer ones in afterwards. That would be fine by me. I think Vince Gill has very well earned his position there, but so have a lot of the older ones who have gone on to Hillbilly Heaven, as we use to call it.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Sweet Memories
Comment: Tho their voices may not be as supple, their singing is cowboy jazz and heartfelt melodies. Exquisite musicianship ( Buddy Emmons on steel, Charlie McCoy on harp, Johnny Gimble on fiddle and Boots Randolf on sax)and a great song selection. What stands out is the clarity and fullness of the recording and the production. They play this up in heaven but not down here on the radio.

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