American Music Legends Vol. 2

regarding the compilation Cracker barrel had nothing left in the barrel..

Track listing is interesting. It will give casual, impulse shoppers a completely different overview of Elvis than the same 30 #1 tracks.

I picked this CD up last night. The version of "America The Beautiful" has the best sound I've heard on an Elvis release. Most of the versions suffer from overload on the high voice parts near the end; however, Sony/BMG got it right this time. In fact, the sound on all the tracks is top notch. The version of "Guitar Man" is the Felton Jarvis overdubbed version from the "Guitar Man" LP.

Now I must ask you Elvis fans/Cracker Barrel customers. Why on earth would you buy this CD? Do you just buy it because its Elvis or do you really think you are getting something you dont already have? I just dont understand why Elvis fans ( casual fans excluded of course) buy the same songs over & over again under a different cover. How many times can u have these songs? It boggles my mind. And this release in particular. Awful cover and the song selection has no theme whatsover. Is it the Cracker Barrel logo on the back cover? Id rather buy one of their mugs. At least I can put coffee in it.

I hear you, Steve. I've long-lamented how much duplication there is in the Elvis catalog. On the other hand, let's face it: the CD era is winding down. People are not going to record stores anymore (which are closing or long gone) and CD sections of even mainstream sellers like Target and Wal-Mart are shrinking to absurdly puny levels. I'm saddened by all this but recognize that the owners of the RCA Elvis catalog (Sony/BMG) are probably smart at this late date reach out to unorthodox (read: older) customers who are, say, going out to each at, say, "Cracker Barrell." Then, we do have a tiny minority of Elvis collectors who find it interesting to collect every permutation of the man's finite catalog of songs and respective versions of them. But they do not drive these releases (they surely are a small number) while those who don't somehow have an Elvis CD might pony up for this along with their meat and potatoes or whatever it is they eat the 'barrel. Five years ago I was a lot more bothered by such dilutions of the Elvis catalog. Sadly, those of us who care about something as relatively recent as the compact disc are fast finding ourselves looked at as geezers. "It's a download / Mp-3/ I-Pod world in 2008: we only live in it," as they say.