The Best Of Shel Silverstein: His Words His Songs His Friends (2005)

"Shel Silverstein is hard to pin down. He's best known as a children's author, but also was a Playboy cartoonist. He penned novelty songs, but also could write songs as heart-wrenching as "Silvia's Mother". He was a terrific songwriter who was a bit of an acquired taste as a performer. His best songs were often best recorded by other artists. This 25-track compilation encompasses a little bit of everything that he did, from whimsical poems to smutty jokes, funky country to precious folk and silly pop. It has some spoken word tracks, some of his own recordings, and a bunch of cuts by others who not only specialized in covering his songs, but were close friends as well. These songs by other artists are uniformly wonderful, and their loose, funny performances - such as the Irish Rovers' "The Unicorn," Bobby Bare's "Marie Lavaux," Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue," Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson's "A Couple More Years," and all four Dr. Hook songs, incl. "Cover of the Rolling Stone"." (S.T. Erlewine, Allmusic)