Consumer Guide Album

Johnny Bush: The Best of Johnny Bush [Million, 1972]
When Bush's hurting, almost operatic baritone strains against Tommy Hill's spare, hard, danceable arrangements, you begin to suspect that God did make honky-tonk angels after all--male ones. Now if only all of Bush's hosannas were as terse and colloquial as the three Willie Nelson songs here. Hyperbolic corn can work in country music--Bush's dramatization of Marty Robbins's "You Gave Me a Mountain" brings a catch to the throat and a tear to the eye. But too often the corn here is as commonplace as Bush's big legit move, a cover of "All in the Game." B+