– Customer review on 29/10/2011

Charley Pride's RCA catalog history on disc has always puzzled me. Here's a guy that RCA claims is second only to Elvis in company record sales and who managed over fifty country hits for them (twenty-nine of which went number one). Yet up till now, all you could get on disc was a few Pride collections of eight (!) to ten songs. This Essential volume contains all of Pride's milestone recordings: his first hit "Just Between You And Me," his first number one "All I Have To Offer You Is Me," and his signature tune "Kiss An Angel Good Mornin'." The rest, like "Is Anyone Going To San Antone," and "You're My Jamaica" are just as good. My only complaint is that the Essential series always limits their sets to twenty tracks and Pride of course had a lot more hits than that. Hopefully, he will get an additional Essential volume sometime soon, like Parton did (actually, it would take three volumes to get the full picture of his productive tenure at RCA). For now, The Essential Charley Pride is a fine introduction to a talented country music trailblazer.