This Is Faron Young!/Hello Walls

This British EMI reissue of two of Faron Young's legendary albums on one disc is a book for Young fans who have only been able to get compilations on CD before now. Between them, This Is Faron Young! and Hello Walls contain no less than six charting singles. The title track of the latter album and "Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young" from the previous one are in the annals of the development of the music as prime examples of honky tonk-style country as an art form in and of itself. But also included here are "Goin' Steady," "If You Ain't Lovin' (You Ain't Livin')," "Big Shoes," "Forget the Past," and slew of others that are just as fine. Two weak tracks from Hello Walls make this collection a bit more human, but even these cuts are far better than the best work by lesser artists. Young's Hank Williams influence was most pronounced here, and these two albums also reveal that he and Williams developed the "Shreveport sound." This is music that sounds live even though it was made in a studio; it's raw, immediate, and full of an amiable good nature, deep blues feeling, and clever wordplay with buckets of steel guitars and fiddles wrapped around the singer. Awesome. ~ Thom Jurek