No Jive: The Very Best of Jose Feliciano 1964-1975)

There has been no shortage of Jose Feliciano compilations over the years -- he is one of the staples of bargain-bin budget-line comps -- but only a handful have attempted a thorough retrospective of his peak years of the '60s and '70s prior to Salvo's 2013 No Jive: The Very Best of Jose Feliciano. Back in 1998, Raven released a single-disc set called And the Sun Will Shine..., a single disc that ran 24 tracks, but No Jive is almost twice as long, spanning 40 tracks over two CDs. There is some overlap with the Raven disc -- the hits "Light My Fire," "Chico and the Man," and "Feliz Navidad" are naturally here (curiously, "Hi-Heel Sneakers," which reached 25 on the Billboard Hot 100, is absent), plus some other songs -- but there is a hefty dose of songs exclusive to Salvo, which makes this one of the more interesting Feliciano collections available, as well as one of the few that gives a true sense of the range of his talent. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine|