A good demonstration of the many facets of Minnie Pearl would be welcome, but this isn't it. First, the program length of each of the three CDs in this set is approximately thirty minutes, which means that two CDs could have easily sufficed. Second, the studio musical numbers are spliced onto the end of live comedy performances without indexing, which means that listeners must manually scan through the comedy bits if they want to hear only the songs. Finally, no recording dates or session information is given, and the "color photographs" and "liner notes" advertised on the cover amount to two color photos the size of postage stamps (the rest are black and white) and a paragraph of text. Although
The Starday Years
provides a fair sampling of Minnie Pearl's comedy and music, this set promises more than it delivers. ~ Greg Adams