Brown Eyes Blue: The Very Best Of

This UK budget album could actually be titled Greatest hits 1974-79, as it contains all her country hits from Wrong road again (1974) to Your kisses will (1979). She moved to another record label, where she continued to have hits beginning later that year with Half the way, but that for those tracks, you'll need a different compilation. The 1974-79 period is the one that Crystal is best remembered for, although she only had six #1 country hits during this time. She had a further three with Columbia and nine with Warner, but much as I like them, her most memorable recordings were for United Artists, and these occupy the first 24 tracks here. The last track was her very first country hit in 1970, recorded for MCA. This set begins with the two tracks that Crystal is best remembered for (Don't it make my brown eyes blue, Talking in your sleep). If you're even thinking of buying this collection, you know about these two. Other songs you might recognize from other sources are Cry me a river (originally made famous by Julie London), It's all right with me (a cover of a Cole Porter song that adapts surprisingly well to country), Dreaming my dreams with you (a big country hit for Waylon Jennings) and One more time (based on the German song Karneval; I even have a German version of the song). Marianne Faithfull covered several of the songs featured here and was clearly a big fan of Crystal's music.