Consumer Guide Album

Randy Travis: Greatest Hits, Volume One [Warner Bros., 1992]
The consumer fraud does his rep an injustice: put all 22 tracks from his two separately sold best-ofs on one CD, where they belong, and there'd be no doubting who's the preeminent country singer of our era. As laid-back as Lefty or Merle with more voice than either, he reaches down to muse in a bass every bit as conversational as the high baritone he beseeches with, and his hits never force an emotion or waste a word. He's a homebody rather than a honky tonker, and he flirts with genre exercise--Lefty didn't need to explain, "I come from the country," or peddle an antialienation homily like "Heroes and Friends." Nevertheless, his style is so consistent that the jumbled chronology will be inaudible to listeners who didn't date their lives by these songs. Not only will it convince you that the genre is his life, but that it has something to do with yours. A