The Soul & The Edge: The Best of Johnny Paycheck
In 1970, after a string of not-quite hits and hard luck, Johnny Paycheck  was singing for drinks in L.A. when Countrypolitan maestro Billy Sherrill gave  him a second shot at a career. Paycheck's Epic debut with the producer, "She's  All I Got," became a country smash and initiated a decade-long stint at the  label that included the most commercially successful and some of the most  emotionally complex work of his career (his much admired earlier  sides--collected on the out-of-his-headThe Real Mr.  Heartache--notwithstanding).The Soul & the Edgedraws from this  fertile tenure, and though it omits a large number of charting hits from this  period, much of what's here is prime Paycheck--"Slide off Your Satin Sheets,"  for example, and his signature "Take This Job and Shove It"--with many of these  tracks otherwise unavailable on disc. Not to be missed are a conflicted pair of  recitations, the notoriously rough and rowdy "Colorado Cool-Aid" (about a  drunken knife fight) and the reverent "The Outlaw's Prayer." Best of all is the  wrenching "I've Seen Better Days," where Paycheck comes to in someone's front  yard, roused by Sherrill's wrenching, string-and-steel dynamics and squinting  into the light of another miserable day.--David Cantwell