Includes a 48-page booklet.

Contains 100 tracks.

The four-disc, 100-track TEXAS TROUBADOR covers Ernest Tubb's career from 1936, when he was the pride of San Angelo, Texas (the small town where the young singer/songwriter had his first radio show, immortalized in the 1940 gem "Swell San Angelo"), to 1952, when he was one of the biggest country stars in Nashville. (Tubb even owned his own record shop that advertised on the Grand Ole Opry.) The set is not only a thorough history of Tubb's early years, it's also a neat recapitulation of the ascendance of honky-tonk music, from its humble beginnings to the days of goofy novelty hits like 1952's "Merry Texas Christmas You All!" The budget-priced set has minimal graphics and liner notes, but the sound is better than one normally finds in this kind of inexpensive reissue. Hardcore Tubb devotees will yearn for the comprehensive and thorough Bear Family reissues, and newcomers might be happier with one of the single-disc compilations, but THE TEXAS TROUBADOR will surely please the folks between those extremes.

Mojo (Publisher) (7/03, p.126) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...[Tubb was] the godfather of honky tonk and the man who brought electric guitars to the Grand Ole Opry..."