• Track Listing

Bill Anderson was the most successful singer-songwriter during the golden age of the Nashville Sound—and yet he’s never had a retrospective anywhere near as comprehensive as this. These recordings were benchmarks in the emergence of that smooth, string-laden sound that began to overtake the country charts in the late ’50s. Along with everything on his first eight Decca LPs, you get seven B-sides, three unissued studio tracks, five duets with Jan Howard (including the #1 smash "For Loving You"), the first reissue of Bill’s early TNT singles (including the rocking "Take Me"), the first recording of his enduring honky-tonk anthem "City Lights" and 12 demos—one a duet with a teenage Dolly Parton! A 64-page hardcover book joins these 126 tracks which clock in at six and a half hours: his hits "That’s What It’s Like to Be Lonesome," "Ninety-Nine," "Dead or Alive," "The Tip of My Fingers," "Walk Out Backwards," "Po’ Folks," "Get a Little Dirt on Your Hands," "Mama Sang a Song," "Still," "8 x 10," "Five Little Fingers," "Easy Come Easy Go," "Me," "Three A.M.," "Certain," "I Love You Drops" and all the rest of Whispering Bill’s early best! Bear Family.