Merle Haggard - Vintage Collections (2010)

Merle Haggard may be the most over-compiled country artist of his generation, with more than half a dozen different collections over the last few years. This 20-song single disc overlaps several of the others, but will prove of interest even to owners of Capitol's four-CD box, for its inclusion -- amid numerous expected hits -- of a pair of superb previously unreleased cuts ("Worried, Unhappy, Lonesome and Sorry," "Streets of Berlin"), and a quartet of otherwise unavailable live tracks, including "White Line Fever," "Family Bible," "Okie From Muskogee," etc., from various concert albums. The sound is fine and the notes are fair, though overwritten.