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Released February 25, 2003

This two-CD, 51-song set is indeed the complete output of Chuck Willis for Columbia. It's the kind of overview that 1950s collectors expect only of import labels such as Bear Family, in fact, gathering not only every last single, but various songs that didn't surface at the time, including three previously unissued tracks (one of them an early version of "Search My Heart"). It isn't, of course, the complete work of everything he waxed before his death in 1958, as it has nothing from his subsequent stint at Atlantic, a period which though brief included his best and most commercial music. That means there's no "What Am I Living For," "C.C. Rider," "Hang Up My Rock & Roll Shoes," or "Betty and Dupree." It also means that this collection is far more tilted toward early-'50s R&B and jump blues than rock & roll. For those reasons it's the second Willis compilation of choice, but it's still superior R&B on the verge of transition into rock & roll, including the Latin-tinged number that became something of a standard, "I Feel So Bad." Much of the earlier sides here were spirited but similar-sounding jump blues-R&B, broken up by some urbane ballads, most of the material written by Willis himself. Truthfully, it gets more interesting and diverse on the later sides on disc two, in which Willis started admitting some rock & roll and doo wop into his style, as on the romantic ballad "I Can Tell," the minor-keyed "Night of Misery," and "Bless Her Heart," which sounds like an early rock & roll spin on Little Walter's "My Babe." Also of interest is "Keep a Knockin'," a 1954 recording that seems to foreshadow some of the ideas used in the 1957 Little Richard hit of the same name, though it's far from the exact same song. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide

TRACKS

1. Can't You See
2. Be Good or Be Gone
3. It Ain't Right to Treat Me Wrong
4. Let's Jump Tonight
5. It's Too Late Baby
6. I Rule My House
7. My Baby's on My Mind
8. I Tried (To Get Along With You)
9. Here I Come
10. Caldonia
11. Loud Mouth Lucy
12. Salty Tears
13. Take It Like a Man
14. Wrong Lake to Catch a Fish
15. My Story
16. I've Been Treated Wrong Too Long
17. Don't Deceive Me
18. My Baby's Coming Home
19. You Broke My Heart
20. When My Day Is Over
21. Going to the River
22. Baby Have Left Me Again
23. You're Still My Baby
24. What's Your Name?
25. Make Up Your Mind
26. I Feel So Bad

DISC 2

27. Need One More Chance
28. You Win This Time [*]
29. Keep a Knockin'
30. If I Had a Million
31. Change My Mind
32. My Heart's Been Broke Again
33. I Don't Mind If I Do
34. Blow, Freddy Jackson
35. Welcome Home
36. Give and Take
37. I've Been Away Too Long
38. Peace and Love [*]
39. Love-Struck
40. It Were You
41. Lawdy Miss Mary
42. Search My Heart [Early Version][*]
43. Come on Home
44. One More Break
45. I Can Tell
46. Search My Heart
47. Ring-Ding-Doo
48. Two Spoons of Tears
49. Charged With Cheating
50. Bless Her Heart
51. Night of Misery

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