Donna Fargo BEST OF/20TH CENTURY

Producer: Stan Silver.
Compilation producer: Mike Ragogna.
Recorded between 1972 and 1976. Includes liner notes by Robyn Flans.
All tracks have been digitally remastered.
This is part of MCA's 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection series.
Since Varese's 18-track 1995 collection The Best of Donna Fargo has gone out of print, MCA's 20th Century Masters from 2002 stands as the best collection of her classic Dot material currently on the market. At 11 tracks, it's considerably shorter than that collection, but it does hit all of her big hits on ABC/Dot, including all of her Top Ten hits: "The Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A.," "Funny Face," "Superman," "You Were Always There," "Little Girl Gone," "I'll Try a Little Bit Harder," "You Can't Be a Beacon (If Your Light Don't Shine)," "U.S. of A.," "It Do Feel Good," and "Don't Be Angry." Of course, all these are on the Varese disc, along with seven other tracks, which makes it the preferable option, but it's much harder to find these days, so in lieu of that, 20th Century Masters suits the bill of a concise overview of Fargo's peak period quite nicely. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

• Format: CD
• Genre: Country