AMG Review of Greatest Country Hits

Stephen Thomas Erlewine
All Music Guide

To the hardcore, John Denver was never really country, as evidenced by Charlie Rich's infamous protest at the Country Music Awards. Nevertheless, he was a country-pop star, scoring a number of hits on the country charts during the '70s and early '80s. Greatest Country Hits is a superb 18-track collection of those hits, and it's nearly as good as any of his greatest-hits collections. A few big songs, such as "Rocky Mountain High" and "Calypso," are missing, but all the familiar songs -- "Take Me Home, Country Roads," "Sunshine on My Shoulders," "Annie's Song," "Back Home Again," "Sweet Surrender," "Thank God I'm a Country Boy," "I'm Sorry" -- are here, along with such latter-day country hits as "Some Days Are Diamonds (Some Days Are Stone)" and "Dreamland Express." Furthermore, it's a generous, attractively packaged collection that is one of the best compilations RCA has yet assembled on Denver.