Time Life Saves The Box Set?

Remember box sets? I once blogged about this dying breed that sprung up in the late 80's CD reissue boom but has pretty much died in the digital age. Rhino used to be the king of 'em, but now they just put out 2 CD reissues and very rarely go beyond that. True, most of everything that needed to be boxed was reissued during the box set heyday. There's not much else left.

Time Life has done a good job of keeping the flame alive. I got hold of 3 of their recent boxes on Jerry Lee Lewis, Merle Haggard and George Jones called Legends of American Music. All are 3 discs. All could've been 4, but they are as up-to-date as you could want, covering all the labels these guys have worked with. Lewis never had a career box (covering his career) above 2 discs before. Haggard, though, did have one on Capitol in the 90's that was cross-licensed, so his box picks up from there with some recent stuff. The surprise of these is that Jones has never had a box set before, so he was due. Time Life do the best they can to cram 50 years worth of music into 3 discs. Like I said before, it would be nice if he could get another one with more album cuts.
Of the 3 I'd rank Jones, Lewis and Haggard in that order. The Haggard one suffers from a lack of album cuts. Haggard was always better on album tracks than Jones.

The reason Country artists rarely get boxed is that they don't sell as much as Rock ones. But that doesn't mean that labels shouldn't give them the same respect they do a box set on Eric Clapton or Elton John. Scattered throughout my CD collection are boxes on Tammy Wynette, Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn. Give Time Life props for staying in the game, and hope they work on a decent box of Dolly Parton.