All of summer, all of fall
Tryin’ to find my little all-in-all
Though she’s gone, I don’t worry
Not much
I’m sittin’ on top of the world
Vol. 8 of the Tiffany Transcriptions confirms for me that I was right when I said that, while it was still overall great, Vol. 7 wasn’t quite up to par with the others in the series. Vol. 8 really had two ways it could have confirmed that. It could have continued the slide by being of even less quality than Vol. 7. Thankfully, it chose the other way; it proved that Vol. 7 was somewhat inferior by bringing the quality level back up to where it was prior to Vol. 7. It strikes me that the people behind these releases were of the same mind I was; it’s interesting to see the eighth volume in a series subtitled “More of the Best.” Were they trying to tell their audience that they were getting back to the best after a slight detour, a kind of “Return of Michael Myers” type scenario? Maybe not, but either way, this is another absolute showstopper of a record.
And it lives up to the title; once again, there are songs here that I think could easily go on a one-disc compilation of this series best stuff. There are songs here as good as the songs on those first two or three discs. Miss Molly, L’il Liza Jane and Sunbonnet Sue are all absolutely frenetic, incredibly fast. Ten Years is a classically styled country song about a relationship that has run its course. There are two astonishingly great instrumentals here, one titled Big Beaver and the other one simply titled South. And don’t miss the instrumental glow-up of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star; the maudlin ditty gets whipped up into a jazzy froth of pure joy. And I have to mention Sitting on Top of the World, a surprisingly mellow and rather long (for this group) version of the blues standard that runs almost five minutes and features a really nuanced, witty and sharp vocal performance from Wills himself. Wills usually left the vocal work to Tommy Duncan, but I’m glad he took this one for himself because it’s maybe the warmest and most nuanced vocal performance of the whole series so far with Wills just really stretching out and luxuriating in the lyrics. A lot of these songs are so fast that it’s kind of hard to talk about things like “phrasing,” but this vocal performance features great phrasing. The band is back on point with great solos all over the place and another CD without a slouch of a song on it. More of the Best indeed. 4 stars.
tl;dr – if Vol. 7 of this archival series of Western Swing releases was a bit of a step down in quality, this one zooms back to quality of the highest kind. 4 stars.