Search - Barbara Mandrell :: Ultimate Collection

A good, solid overview of Mandrell's peak years.

David Kenner | Fort Worth, Texas United States | 07/13/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Barbara Mandrell is something of an enigma. She's known primarily as a great vocalist yet showed amazing instrumental prowess in her live shows. She unabashedly proclaims that she "was country when country wasn't cool", but had no trouble pulling off convincing covers of R&B powerhouses like Shirley Brown's "Woman To Woman" or Luther Ingram's "I Don't Wanna Be Right". She never holds back in the least when discussing her personal religious convictions but often performed songs about marital infidelity. She counts Dolly Parton, Brenda Lee, Tammy Wynette, Minnie Pearl and Aretha Franklin among her biggest influences but walked away from her music career, in part because she felt that a woman should get off the stage once she reaches her 40s. But while she's always been hard to define or categorize, her musical legacy speaks volumes on her behalf. This very comprehensive collection of Mandrell's biggest hit singles of the 70s and 80s has been a long time coming and does a good job of hitting the highlights of her recording career. She had too many hits to include them all, of course, and after looking over the impressive list of tracks that are included, the titles that are not included start coming to mind ("Midnight Angel", "He Set My Life To Music", "Crossword Puzzle", "Wish You Were Here", "Operator Long Distance Please"). This is really a great single disc retrospective but it kind of makes me sad that the 2 disc collection that the Razor & Tie label had planned several years back never saw the light of day. This disc does include my two very favorite performances though: "Only A Lonely Heart Knows" and "Happy Birthday Dear Heartache". Any fan of Mandrell will find a lot to love on this compilation."

All the hits you want

Allen Chapman | STAFFORD SPRINGS, CT USA | 08/05/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"With this new collection of hits from Barbara Mandrell you get all the hits you remember. Starting off with her first top ten single "Tonight My Baby's Coming Home" from 1971 up thru her last top five single "I Wish That I Could Fall In Love Today" from 1988. In between are all the other hits from her stays on Columbia, ABC/Dot, MCA and Capital. This collection is a single disc version of the Razor & Tie collection "Greatest Hits" from 1997, which was only available thru mail order. This is a great disc if you want her hits. However, now that Barbara has said she won't record anymore, it would be nice to see a boxed set covering her entire career from her "Queen For A Day" single on Mosrite up thru "Ten Pound Hammer" from her under rated final album, "It Works For Me". Maybe someday someone will re-issue her albums on CD. So until that happens or we get a boxed set this is nice collection to have on your shelf."

Guilty pleasure from purely innocent material

Dana C. Steinman | SyracuseNY | 08/19/2001

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I have to give credit when credit is due: Barbara Mandrell has one hell of a voice, really. Saying that she is simply another capable singer matched with incapable material--although true to a certain extent--would be too easy. Mandrell usually manages to make the best of whatever she's singing over. It is her voice that wins in the in the end, even with stronger material. Whether sounding heavy, soulful (How I would love to hear her match wits with Gladys Knight), deep, or husky, she is dexterous enough to tackle any musical style with convincing agility...except county. Mandrell has always been, as far as my ears are concerned and most of the material on this collection suggests, a pop singer. In concert she sings the gospel as if from the pulpit, heavily rocks the foundation from underneath the lightweight studio version of "In Times Like These", and raps like a true fan of the genre could. Although, her signature track, "I Was Country When Country Wasn't Cool", sounds more like novelty than a legitimate stab at country credo. Recorded during the peak of country's highly polished pop sheen it's no more than cute sentiment (but not necessarily a bad record), even with George Jones making an appearance at the end. Another Mandrell evergreen, "Years", would have fared much better without the trappings of its perfunctory country radio instrumentation. As well, "No One Mends A Broken Heart Like You" sounds too impeded by its downbeat honky-tonk posing. On the other hand, her rendition of "If Loving You Is Wrong I Don't Wanna Be Right" is surprisingly soulful and begs for immediate repeated listenings simply to hear Barbara's reading one more time; "Fooled By A Feeling" borrows more from the disco ball than it does from Nashville. Throughout it's the blatant pop offerings on this collection that make it so appealing: "Sleeping Double In A Double Bed" perhaps with a beefier production could have been her Pop Top 40 crossover years before "If Loving You Is Wrong..."; "Till You're Gone" features synthesizers as prominently as anything acoustic. "Angel In Your Arms" is almost as soulful as her previous triumph in R&B remake territory and "Happy Birthday Dear Heartache" is an enjoyable ode to Fifties balladry. It is her voice that makes all of these examples shine. This as good as Mandrell's material gets, and sometimes that's all that's necessary."