‘Ultimate Collection’
Universal / Hip-O Records 088 112 730-2 (2001)
Gene Watson’s ‘Ultimate Collection’ (Universal / Hip-O Records, 2001) was released by Universal / Hip-O Records on Tuesday 20 November 2001 and was a glorious celebration of some of Gene Watson’s finest work from his days with Capitol Records (1975 – 1980), MCA Records (1981 – 1985), Epic Records (1985 – 1987) and Warner Bros. Records (1988 – 1991).
Gene Watson’s ‘Ultimate Collection’ (Universal / Hip-O Records, 2001) discography information is presented on the Gene Watson Fan Site for educational purposes only and no infringement of copyright is intended.
About Gene Watson’s ‘Ultimate Collection’…
Album Sleeve Notes
‘Gary Gene Watson never intended on a career in music. When you take a look at the tracks on this ‘Ultimate Collection’ (Universal / Hip-O Records, 2001), it becomes evident his absence would have left a gaping hole in country music, for as one of Nashville’s premiere country journalists, Robert K. Oermann, has said, ‘The world stops spinning when he sings’.
So, while, Watson says, ‘I never did go looking for music, music found me’, music was obviously destined for this unassuming man born in Palestine, Texas, and raised in Paris, Texas.
But, because he took his singing in church, and with his 6 siblings, for granted, never considering that it could be a profession, to this day it is difficult for him to trace the origin of his realisation that indeed it would end up being the crux of his life.
‘As far back as I can remember talking, I can remember singing. My brother, just younger than me, played lead guitar and I was the singer, and we would entertain at a lot of the school functions and local get-togethers. But music was never one of my goals. All I ever dreamed of was working on cars’, says Watson, who still enjoys dabbling on cars in his little shop in Houston.
By 17, he was married (still is, to the same woman he married in 1961), and had to lie about his age to get a job building missile silos in Abilene. Five years later, in 1966, Watson moved to Dallas where an uncle helped him get his first professional job as a singer at a club called The Palms.
Still, he didn’t take the possibility of making a living at music seriously, until moving to Houston where he formed a band called Gene Watson & The Other Four, dropping the Gary from his name. ‘I got tired of everybody calling me Larry and Gerry and all of that’, he says with a laugh. ‘So I decided to just use my middle name. And even then, people were bad about thinking my name was Eugene, which it’s not’.
There were lots of lean times, living hand to mouth, apartment to apartment, but finally, right after he put a new band together, he got his first big break in 1974.
Managers Roy Stone and Russ Reeder saw the band called the Hailball Express, in honour of the ’72 Ford he drove, pitted by hail stones, or ‘hailballs’, as locals called them, and approached Watson to record locally, and finally in Nashville.
When the two managers split, Stone chose to take the masters they had recorded and Reeder was happy to assume full management of Watson, whose desire was to record only in Nashville. He and Reeder formed Resco Records, named for a one-stop distributing company Reeder owned called Record Service Company, for which Watson recorded ‘Bad Water’, a song previously done by Ray Charles’ background singers, The Raelettes.
It was his first charted single, although he only remembers it was ‘way down there’, but more important is that it drew the attention of a Capitol Records executive who flew to Houston to check out the singer. A five-year recording contract was the result of that fateful meeting.
Watson had already recorded ‘Love In The Hot Afternoon‘, which had just been released on Resco, when he signed with Capitol. The song, previously recorded by several others, including Jim Ed Brown (Sunday 1 April 1934 – Thursday 11 June 2015), became a regional hit. ‘Everyone else had changed the lyrics around where they felt there would be a chance of playing it on the radio. Back in ‘74, that was a pretty spicy song for airplay. It kinda scared me, I have to admit. When we went up to record it, I told Russ, ‘We may never get this thing played on the radio, but if I’m going to record it, I’m going to record it exactly the way it was written’. It took off like a house on fire’.
But, Watson explains, the Resco-issued single hit a very large region including Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma, so by the time Capitol re-issued it on their own label with a sleeve that said ‘Rush’, it had already become huge in that market and was beginning to descend. Ultimately, that thwarted the song from going to the top.
‘Because it had already hit No.1 in so many areas in the South, and was already on its way down, by the time it was going No.1 in the other areas, it could only get to No.3 in the nation’.
No.3 right out of the gate was still no small accomplishment, and ‘Love In The Hot Afternoon‘ was also pronounced the No.4 song for the entire year of 1975. All of a sudden Watson had a career!
‘I was scared to death’, he admits now with a laugh. ‘I was thinking, ‘What am I going to do next?’ That’s always been one of my quirks – it’s not what I have out right now, it’s what am I going to come up with next? I’m a stickler for material, and while I’ve always had the freedom to pick and choose my own material, it’s always been a heavy burden on my back.
Even though Russ Reeder was my producer, he never told me what to record or what not to record. He might suggest something or bring me a song, but never once did he say, ‘We’re gonna do this’. He worked inside the control room and I worked inside the studio with the musicians’.
‘As far as the arrangements, 99% of that was my doing – I worked that up with the musicians’, says Watson, who initially used such Nashville session greats as fiddle players Lisa Silver and Buddy Spicher (‘He’s the one who played that real neat fiddle ride on ‘Love In The Hot Afternoon‘), Lloyd Green and Sonny Garrish on steel guitar, Junior Husky on bass, Tommy Allsup (Tuesday 24 November 1931 – Wednesday 11 January 2017) (guitar), drummers such as Dominic Joseph (D.J.) Fontana (Sunday 15 March 1931 – Wednesday 13 June 2018), Buddy Harman (Sunday 23 December 1928 – Thursday 21 August 2008) and Kenny Malone (Thursday 4 August 1938 – Thursday 26 August 2021), and would reschedule his sessions if Hargus ‘Pig’ Robbins (Tuesday 18 January 1938 – Sunday 30 January 2022) (piano) was not available. In the mid ’80s, he began to use his own band in the studio.
After his explosive introduction to radio, life changed quite dramatically for the man who had never considered music a viable way to earn a living. ‘I still didn’t take it for granted, though. I thought, ‘I got me this major recording contract with a big label’, but I also had enough sense to know that they can drop you just as quick as they sign you. So, instead of selling my (auto) tools, I rolled them in my garage. Not for a minute did I forget how to work on cars, so if this didn’t work, I could always go back to doing that’.
He never had to. Not that it was easy, though. Watson still remembers an early tour, opening for Loretta Lynn (Thursday 14 April 1932 – Tuesday 4 October 2022) and Conway Twitty (Friday 1 September 1933 – Saturday 5 June 1993).
‘Of course they had their busses and I’m driving a four-wheeler’, he says with a laugh. ‘I’ll never forget one night when I had driven until my eyeballs were about to fall out, trying to keep up with those buses – I spent my time catching up with them, stopping and fuelling up, and then catching them again, and Loretta said, ‘Gene, why don’t you take that car home and fly back. We’ll pick you up and you can finish the tour on my bus’.
We were in Lansing, Michigan, and I drove, non-stop, to Houston, parked that car, caught a plane and flew into Augusta, Maine. They picked me up and I finished up the tour riding Loretta‘s bus. We were so close, and the bands thought so much of me, that one night Loretta‘s band would back me up, and the next night Conway’s band would back me up. I was in hog heaven’.
Watson was able to find another winner in ‘Where Love Begins’ when, after a recording session one night, writer Ray Griff (Monday 22 April 1940 – Wednesday 9 March 2016) took Watson to his office to play him demo tapes.
Watson ended up recording several Ray Griff (Monday 22 April 1940 – Wednesday 9 March 2016) compositions, including ‘Between This Time & The Next Time’, also on this collection.
Watson wasn’t so sure of Dallas Harms‘ ‘Paper Rosie’, though. Frank Jones (Sunday 4 March 1928 – Thursday 3 February 2005), head of the Capitol country division at the time, found the song in Canada where it had been the song of the year for its composer / singer. Whereas, everyone who heard the song said it was a hit, Watson didn’t hear it.
‘There was just something about the way he did it and the way I heard it – it just didn’t gel. I’ve always felt that, no matter how good a song is, if it’s not my song, I don’t want to waste the song or my time.
But everyone kept saying, ‘This is a great song’, and I thought, ‘This many people can’t be wrong’. I went in and recorded it, but, just as I thought, it didn’t suit me at all. I went back out on the road and was in my motel room in Chicago when I touched base with the office and Frank Jones said, ‘Gene, I believe if you come back in and re-record this song, it’ll be a smash’.
Because Jones felt so strongly about it, Watson gave it another chance and re-recorded it, this time with a flute part and re-examining of the song’s lyrics and meaning. ‘When I went back into the studio, the song was the same. I was what was different’. Persistence paid off. The second time in the studio, the production came together easily and its outcome pleased Gene and his fans, who helped take the song to the Top 5 of the country charts.
Sheer determination is responsible for Watson even hearing the demo of ‘Fourteen Carat Mind’, the first No.1 record of 1982, written by Larry Lee Favorite (Saturday 6 January 1940 – Saturday 26 May 2001) and Dallas Frazier (Friday 27 October 1939 – Friday 14 January 2022). (Frazier also had a No.1 hit when The Oak Ridge Boys recorded ‘Elvira’ that same year).
Watson recalls one night as the bus was going down the road, listening to a pile of tapes loaded in a huge box after signing with MCA Records.
‘I had listened to tapes until my ear was about to fall off, and I finally got down to the bottom of the box where there was a reel-to-reel box. I thought, ‘Who in the world would send me a demo on a reel-to-reel tape?’
I had a reel-to-reel machine on the bus, I dug it out, blew the cobwebs off it, and I could hardly get it threaded up. But I put this tape on that reel-to-reel recording, and I knew, within 16 bars, that it was a hit, and I had to record it’.
Around that time, Watson’s entire appearance changed, from the slicked-back ‘Elvis’ look, to the longer haired, facial haired presence of today. It was such a radical change, that it became the focal point of nearly every interview and article printed about Watson at the time. Finally, he tells the story of how it happened.
‘We were playing a place called Lake Norman, North Carolina, and all of a sudden, before I went on stage, here came two carloads of police and they were going to impound my bus. I had no idea why. They didn’t know all the details, they were just there with their orders to impound the bus.
It turned out that there was a guy who had had me booked in North Carolina whose job I had to cancel because I was sick, under medication. Someone told him I was playing somewhere else the same night, so he filed a suit against me, and there was a warrant that the first time I came into the state of North Carolina, they would seize my bus and take me to court.
The officers were kind enough to let us get a few changes of clothes and what instruments we could carry off the bus, and our next job was in New York City at the Lone Star Cafe’, says Watson of the incident which was thrown out of court, but whose impounded bus engine froze, causing him to have to buy a new bus. ‘I had to get airline tickets, and with all the ballyhoo going on, I forgot everything it took to shave with, so I said, ‘What the hey’, and I quit shaving and stopped getting my hair cut. I don’t know if it was in retaliation, or what, but the next time my fans went to buy an album, they didn’t even recognise who was on the cover’.
But the music would not change – he would still give the public the same reliable Gene Watson sound they had come to expect, including 1983’s ‘Drinkin’ My Way Back Home’, which Watson says halted high on the charts, due to protests from Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD), and 1984’s ‘Got No Reason Now For Going Home’, which composer Johnny Russell (Tuesday 23 January 1940 – Tuesday 3 July 2001) pitched to Watson one night while they were both guests on the ‘Nashville Now’ television show, which was hosted by Ralph Emery (Friday 10 March 1933 – Saturday 15 January 2022).
‘Johnny was one of my best friends in the music business and he said he wanted me to take that tape back to Houston, learn it, and come back to Nashville and record it.
I said, ‘John, I’ll listen to it’, and he said, ‘I can get anybody to listen to it. I said go learn it and record it!’ We went out on the bus after the taping of the show, he played it for me, and I liked the song a lot, so I did exactly what he said’.
As Watson arrived at Nashville’s Hilltop Studios to record ‘Memories to Burn’, Ray Price (Tuesday 12 January 1926 – Monday 16 December 2013) was finishing up his session and, lo and behold, he was just completing his own recording of ‘Memories to Burn‘.
‘I never have been real long on intelligence’, Watson says with a laugh. ‘So we went on in and I said, ‘We’re going to record this thing just like if he never recorded it’. But, in fact, what he did next was very intelligent.
Upon completion of the recording, he headed quickly to the offices of his new label, Epic Records, with the tape and said, ‘You’d better get this out as quick as you can because one of the big boys just got finished recording it’. They rushed it out.
Singer Leona Williams and guitarist Dave Kirby (Sunday 10 July 1938 – Saturday 17 April 2004) happened to drop by the studio while Watson was recording ‘Cold Summer Day In Georgia’, and ‘Leona jumped in there and sang harmony with me, and Dave Kirby (Sunday 10 July 1938 – Saturday 17 April 2004) sat down and played guitar on it, so that one has some good memories’, Watson reflects.
It was at his next label, Warner Brothers, where he would chart the final three songs of this collection, including his last big country hit, ‘Don’t Waste it on the Blues’.
Having wrestled with a bout of colon cancer recently, undergoing successful surgery and precautionary chemotherapy, Watson is particularly thrilled to be able to reminisce about the legacy of music he never imagined contributing.
‘I had no idea that I could rely on music to support my family’, says Watson who has two children and one grandchild, as a result of his enduring marriage. ‘And I owe all of it to the fans and the DJs and people who played and bought my music’.
Robyn Flans
September 2001′
Gene Watson’s ‘Ultimate Collection’ (Universal / Hip-O Records, 2001) was produced by Mike Ragogna; the Executive Producer was Pat Lawrence and the Production Coordinator was Michele Horie.
Editorial assistance was given by Barry Korkin and Licensing was undertaken by Robin Schwartz.
The Head of Art Direction was Ilene Weingard, with Design by I Design Studio.
Photo Research for the ‘Ultimate Collection’ was undertaken by Geary Chansley / Chansley Entertainment Archives.
‘Ultimate Collection’
Universal/Hip-O Records 088 112 730-2 (2001)
1 ‘Love In The Hot Afternoon’
Writers: Kent Westberry and Vincent Wesley Matthews (1940 – Saturday 22 November 2003)
Publishers: EMI-Capitol Music Special Markets
‘Love In The Hot Afternoon’, which was written by Kent Westberry and Vincent Wesley Matthews (1940 – Saturday 22 November 2003), was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘Love in the Hot Afternoon‘ (Capitol Records, 1975).
Gene Watson re-recorded ‘Love In The Hot Afternoon’, which was written by Kent Westberry and Vincent Wesley Matthews (1940 – Saturday 22 November 2003), and included the track on ‘Best of the Best: 25 Greatest Hits‘ (Fourteen Carat Music, 2012).
2 ‘Where Love Begins’
Writer: Ray Griff (Monday 22 April 1940 – Wednesday 9 March 2016)
Publishers: EMI-Capitol Music Special Markets
‘Where Love Begins’, which was written by Ray Griff (Monday 22 April 1940 – Wednesday 9 March 2016), was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘Love in the Hot Afternoon‘ (Capitol Records, 1975).
Gene Watson re-recorded ‘Where Love Begins’, which was written by Ray Griff (Monday 22 April 1940 – Wednesday 9 March 2016), and included the track on ‘Best of the Best: 25 Greatest Hits‘ (Fourteen Carat Music, 2012).
3 ‘Paper Rosie’
Writer: Dallas Harms (Thursday 18 July 1935 – Saturday 12 October 2019)
Publishers: EMI-Capitol Music Special Markets
‘Paper Rosie’, which was written by Dallas Harms (Thursday 18 July 1935 – Saturday 12 October 2019), was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘Paper Rosie‘ (Capitol Records, 1977).
Gene Watson re-recorded ‘Paper Rosie’, which was written by Dallas Harms (Thursday 18 July 1935 – Saturday 12 October 2019), and included the track on ‘Best of the Best: 25 Greatest Hits‘ (Fourteen Carat Music, 2012).
4 ‘Pick The Wildwood Flower’
Writer: Joe Allen
Publishers: EMI-Capitol Music Special Markets
‘Pick The Wildwood Flower’ (written by Joe Allen) was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘Reflections‘ (Capitol Records, 1978).
Gene Watson re-recorded ‘Pick The Wildwood Flower’ (written by Joe Allen) and included the track on ‘Best of the Best: 25 Greatest Hits‘ (Fourteen Carat Music, 2012).
5 ‘Nothing Sure Looked Good On You’
Writer: Jim Rushing
Publishers: EMI-Capitol Music Special Markets
‘Nothing Sure Looked Good On You’ (written by Jim Rushing) was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘Should I Come Home‘ (Capitol Records, 1979).
Gene Watson re-recorded ‘Nothing Sure Looked Good On You’ (written by Jim Rushing) and included the track on ‘Best of the Best: 25 Greatest Hits‘ (Fourteen Carat Music, 2012).
6 ‘Between This Time & The Next Time’
Writer: Ray Griff (Monday 22 April 1940 – Wednesday 9 March 2016)
Publishers: MCA Nashville / UMG Recordings, Inc.
‘Between This Time & The Next Time’, which was written by Ray Griff (Monday 22 April 1940 – Wednesday 9 March 2016), was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘Between This Time & The Next Time‘ (MCA Records, 1981).
Gene Watson re-recorded ‘Between This Time & The Next Time’, which was written by Ray Griff (Monday 22 April 1940 – Wednesday 9 March 2016), and included the track on ‘Best of the Best: 25 Greatest Hits‘ (Fourteen Carat Music, 2012).
7 ‘Maybe I Should Have Been Listening’
Writer: Buzz Rabin (Friday 25 October 1940 – Sunday 13 October 2024)
Publishers: MCA Nashville / UMG Recordings, Inc.
‘Maybe I Should Have Been Listening’, which was written by Buzz Rabin (Friday 25 October 1940 – Sunday 13 October 2024), was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘Between This Time & The Next Time‘ (MCA Records, 1981).
8 ‘Fourteen Carat Mind’
Writers: Dallas Frazier (Friday 27 October 1939 – Friday 14 January 2022) and Larry Lee Favorite (Saturday 6 January 1940 – Saturday 26 May 2001)
Publishers: MCA Nashville / UMG Recordings, Inc.
‘Fourteen Carat Mind’, which was written by Dallas Frazier (Friday 27 October 1939 – Friday 14 January 2022) and Larry Lee Favorite (Saturday 6 January 1940 – Saturday 26 May 2001), was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘Old Loves Never Die‘ (MCA Records, 1981).
Gene Watson re-recorded ‘Fourteen Carat Mind’, which was written by Dallas Frazier (Friday 27 October 1939 – Friday 14 January 2022) and Larry Lee Favorite (Saturday 6 January 1940 – Saturday 26 May 2001), and included the track on ‘Best of the Best: 25 Greatest Hits‘ (Fourteen Carat Music, 2012).
9 ‘Speak Softly (You’re Talking to My Heart)’
Writers: Steve Spurgin and J.D. Mendenall
Publishers: MCA Nashville / UMG Recordings, Inc.
‘Speak Softly (You’re Talking to My Heart)’ (written by Steve Spurgin and J.D. Mendenhall) was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘Old Loves Never Die‘ (MCA Records, 1981).
Gene Watson re-recorded ‘Speak Softly (You’re Talking to My Heart)’ (written by Steve Spurgin and J.D. Mendenall) and included the track on ‘Best of the Best: 25 Greatest Hits‘ (Fourteen Carat Music, 2012).
10 ‘This Dream’s on Me’
Writer: Fred Koller
Publishers: MCA Nashville / UMG Recordings, Inc.
‘This Dream’s on Me’ (written by Fred Koller) was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘This Dream’s on Me‘ (MCA Records, 1982).
Gene Watson re-recorded ‘This Dream’s on Me’ (written by Fred Koller) and included the track on ‘Best of the Best: 25 Greatest Hits‘ (Fourteen Carat Music, 2012).
11 ‘What She Don’t Know Won’t Hurt Her’
Writers: Dave Lindsey and Ernie Rowell
Publishers: MCA Nashville / UMG Recordings, Inc.
‘What She Don’t Know Won’t Hurt Her’ (written by Dave Lindsey and Ernie Rowell) was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘This Dream’s on Me‘ (MCA Records, 1982).
Gene Watson re-recorded ‘What She Don’t Know Won’t Hurt Her’ (written by Dave Lindsey and Ernie Rowell) and included the track on ‘Best of the Best: 25 Greatest Hits‘ (Fourteen Carat Music, 2012).
12 ‘You’re Out Doing What I’m Here Doing Without’
Writers: Bo Roberts and Allen Frizzell
Publishers: MCA Nashville / UMG Recordings, Inc.
‘You’re Out Doing What I’m Here Doing Without’ (written by Bo Roberts and Allen Frizzell) was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘Sometimes I Get Lucky‘ (MCA Records, 1983).
Gene Watson re-recorded ‘You’re Out Doing What I’m Here Doing Without’ (written by Bo Roberts and Allen Frizzell) and included the track on ‘Best of the Best: 25 Greatest Hits‘ (Fourteen Carat Music, 2012).
13 ‘Sometimes I Get Lucky & Forget’
Writers: Ernie Rowell and Bobby Lee House (Friday 11 February 1949 – Thursday 25 November 2004)
Publishers: MCA Nashville / UMG Recordings, Inc.
‘Sometimes I Get Lucky & Forget’, which was written by Ernie Rowell and Bobby Lee House (Friday 11 February 1949 – Thursday 25 November 2004), was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘Sometimes I Get Lucky‘ (MCA Records, 1983).
Gene Watson re-recorded ‘Sometimes I Get Lucky & Forget’, which was written by Ernie Rowell and Bobby Lee House (Friday 11 February 1949 – Thursday 25 November 2004), and included the track on ‘Gene Watson: Then & Now‘ (Koch Records Nashville, 2005).
Gene Watson re-recorded ‘Sometimes I Get Lucky & Forget’, which was written by Ernie Rowell and Bobby Lee House (Friday 11 February 1949 – Thursday 25 November 2004), and included the track on ‘Best of the Best: 25 Greatest Hits‘ (Fourteen Carat Music, 2012).
14 ‘Drinkin’ My Way Back Home’
Writers: D. Scaife, Ronny Scaife (1947 – Wednesday 3 November 2010) and Phil Thomas (1944 – Saturday 5 January 2019)
Publishers: MCA Nashville / UMG Recordings, Inc.
‘Drinkin’ My Way Back Home’, which was written by D. Scaife, Ronny Scaife (1947 – Wednesday 3 November 2010) and Phil Thomas (1944 – Saturday 5 January 2019), was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘Little by Little‘ (MCA Records, 1984 & 1990).
Gene Watson re-recorded ‘Drinkin’ My Way Back Home’, which was written by D. Scaife, Ronny Scaife (1947 – Wednesday 3 November 2010) and Phil Thomas (1944 – Saturday 5 January 2019), and included the track on ‘Best of the Best: 25 Greatest Hits‘ (Fourteen Carat Music, 2012).
15 ‘Forever Again’
Writers: Warren D. Robb and Dave Kirby (Sunday 10 July 1938 – Saturday 17 April 2004)
Publishers: MCA Nashville / UMG Recordings, Inc.
‘Forever Again’, which was written by Warren D. Robb and Dave Kirby (Sunday 10 July 1938 – Saturday 17 April 2004), was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘Little by Little‘ (MCA Records, 1984 & 1990).
16 ‘Got No Reason Now For Going Home’
Writer: Johnny Russell (Tuesday 23 January 1940 – Tuesday 3 July 2001)
Publishers: MCA Nashville / UMG Recordings, Inc.
‘Got No Reason Now For Going Home’, which was written by Johnny Russell (Tuesday 23 January 1940 – Tuesday 3 July 2001), was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘Heartaches, Love & Stuff‘ (MCA Records, 1984).
Gene Watson re-recorded ‘Got No Reason Now For Going Home’, which was written by Johnny Russell (Tuesday 23 January 1940 – Tuesday 3 July 2001), and included the track on ‘Best of the Best: 25 Greatest Hits‘ (Fourteen Carat Music, 2012).
17 ‘Cold Summer Day in Georgia’
Writers: Dennis Knutson (1949 – Saturday 1 September 2018) and Arthur Leo ‘Doodle’ Owens (Friday 28 November 1930 – Monday 4 October 1999)
Publishers: Sony Music Special Products
‘Cold Summer Day in Georgia’, which was written by Dennis Knutson (1949 – Saturday 1 September 2018) and Arthur Leo ‘Doodle’ Owens (Friday 28 November 1930 – Monday 4 October 1999), was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘Memories to Burn‘ (Epic Records, 1985).
• This track appears on CD for the first time
18 ‘Memories to Burn’
Writers: Warren D. Robb and Dave Kirby (Sunday 10 July 1938 – Saturday 17 April 2004)
Publishers: Sony Music Special Products
‘Memories To Burn’, which was written by Warren D. Robb and Dave Kirby (Sunday 10 July 1938 – Saturday 17 April 2004), was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘Memories to Burn‘ (Epic Records, 1985).
Gene Watson re-recorded ‘Memories to Burn’, which was written by Warren D. Robb and Dave Kirby (Sunday 10 July 1938 – Saturday 17 April 2004), and included the track on ‘Best of the Best: 25 Greatest Hits‘ (Fourteen Carat Music, 2012).
19 ‘Everything I Used to Do’
Writer: Ernie Rowell
Publishers: Sony Music Special Products
‘Everything I Used to Do’ (written by Ernie Rowell) was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘Starting New Memories‘ (Epic Records, 1986).
• This track appears on CD for the first time
20 ‘Everybody Needs A Hero’
Writers: Troy Seals and Max D. Barnes (Friday 24 July 1936 – Sunday 11 January 2004)
Publishers: Sony Music Special Products
‘Everybody Needs A Hero’, which was written by Troy Seals and Max. D. Barnes (Friday 24 July 1936 – Sunday 11 January 2004), was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘Honky Tonk Crazy‘ (Epic Records, 1987).
Gene Watson re-recorded ‘Everybody Needs A Hero’, which was written by Troy Seals and Max D. Barnes (Friday 24 July 1936 – Sunday 11 January 2004), and included the track on ‘Gene Watson: Then & Now‘ (Koch Records Nashville, 2005).
21 ‘Don’t Waste It On The Blues’
Writers: Sandy Ramos and Jerry Vandiver
Publishers: Warner Brothers Records, Inc.
‘Don’t Waste It On The Blues’ (written by Sandy Ramos and Jerry Vandiver) was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘Back in the Fire‘ (Warner Bros. Records, 1989).
Gene Watson re-recorded ‘Don’t Waste It On The Blues’ (written by Sandy Ramos and Jerry Vandiver) and included the track on ‘Best of the Best: 25 Greatest Hits‘ (Fourteen Carat Music, 2012).
22 ‘Back In The Fire’
Writers: Rory Bourke and Mike Reid
Publishers: Warner Brothers Records, Inc.
‘Back In The Fire’ (written by Rory Bourke and Mike Reid) was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘Back in the Fire‘ (Warner Bros. Records, 1989).
Gene Watson re-recorded ‘Back In The Fire’ (written by Rory Bourke and Mike Reid) and included the track on ‘Gene Watson: Then & Now‘ (Koch Records Nashville, 2005).
Gene Watson re-recorded ‘Back In The Fire’ (written by Rory Bourke and Mike Reid) and included the track on ‘Best of the Best: 25 Greatest Hits‘ (Fourteen Carat Music, 2012).
23 ‘The Jukebox Played Along’
Writers: Ken Bell and Charles William Quillen (Monday 21 March 1938 – Friday 19 August 2022)
Publishers: Warner Brothers Records, Inc.
‘The Jukebox Played Along’, which was written by Ken Bell and Charles William Quillen (Monday 21 March 1938 – Friday 19 August 2022), was originally included on Gene Watson’s ‘Back in the Fire‘ (Warner Bros. Records, 1989).
Gene Watson re-recorded ‘The Jukebox Played Along’, which was written by Ken Bell and Charles William Quillen (Monday 21 March 1938 – Friday 19 August 2022), and included the track on ‘Gene Watson: Then & Now‘ (Koch Records Nashville, 2005).
• Read a Country Music People review of Gene Watson’s ‘Ultimate Collection‘ (Universal / Hip-O Records, 2001)
The review, which was written by Craig Baguley, was published in the May 2002 issue of the United Kingdom monthly publication Country Music People.
‘Ultimate Collection’
Universal / Hip-O Records 088 112 730-2 (2001)