Amazing Grace: 40 Treasured Hymns

I received the above product in excellent condition. It was exactly as described and I have been enjoying listening to it since it's arrival. Ordering, paying and receiving products is always easy on Amazon.com. Thankyou for your excellent service. Barb V.

No stars at all...This tape Stinks...very baaad.
The backup singers ruin this tape.

Ralphael, the OLD one

The booming bass of Tennessee Ernie Ford is truly something to behold. The envy of opera baritones, Tennessee Ernie Ford is one of the few singers (Crosby and Como come to mind) who can sing the saddest of laments one minute and turn around and sing the funniest of ditties the next. His discography reflects this, and spans from country to rock and from gospel to pop. But, of all Tennessee Ernie Ford's music, I prefer his gospel. His deep, emotive baritone is perfect for shading the notes of even the most wistful heavenly pleas. This CD compilation represents an excellent sampling of his many gospel LPs. Every type of gospel song is present, from the obscure to the ubiquitous. However, what separates these versions of hymns from others is untimely Tennessee himself. A man of deep Christian faith, he instils these hymns with a level of emotion and a depth of feeling seldom heard, and certainly beyond what even the original composers may have imagined. From these recordings, it is easy to see why his first album, aptly titled `Hymns,' spent 277 weeks on the best selling charts.

The song choices can hardly be faulted, representing the complete spectrum of his gospel recording stretching from the early 1960's right into the late 1970's. Taken as a whole, this is an excellent sampling while we await the eventual re-release of his entire gospel discography. Though great, it is not a perfect release by any means. Not that there is anything wrong with the songs, mind you, just the quality and sources used. Although no documentation is provided, it appears that this CD uses at least three different levels of sourcing for its songs, which results in some very uneven sound quality. The good news is that there appears to be 1st generation masters used on many of the tracks, especially the tracks sourced from the `Spiritual' and `Hymn' long players. However, these are not original version of those tracks. In 1962 both aforementioned LPs were re-recorded in full stereophonic sound, and those are the versions brilliantly present here. There is one curious change though. The song "In the Garden" is sourced from the vinyl of the 1956 mono version, resulting in the worst sounding effort in the disc. Most other songs have middling sound quality, as all other songs, save the ones recorded with the The Jordanaires, appear to be sourced from 2nd generation masters.

I strongly recommend purchasing this with the recently re-released LPs of `Hymns' and `Spirituals.' Although the track listing between those two albums and this set may seem to overlap, they do not. The versions are, in fact, completely different.

If you like gospel music, you might as well start with the best, and this is it. You will not find a better singer of Christian songs.

A.J. Smith
A 19-year old music fan

Very meaningful and olden but golden songs along with songs that I'd not heard before.

Amazing Grace: 40 Treasured Hymns-I will take the title of this CD set and call it "Amazing Music" by one of my favorite singers of all time. His voice is always strong and soars about the backup singers. My favorite of the 40 hymns on these two CD's is: "Did You Think to Pray?". On the last chorus of this hymn, Tennessee Ernie takes the bass part and blends it with the backup singers in a way that touches my heart every time I hear it. A purchase of this item is money WELL spent! Bill Joe Nix, Shelbyville, Tennessee 37160