Jose Feliciano: The Very Best Of Jose Feliciano CD 2013

The Latin-born singer and guitarist has been churning out original hits and distinctive takes on other people's material for over 40 years. This collection gathers some of his most famous (his breakthrough smash version of The Doors' Light My Fire ) and infamous (his stirring, but at the time controversial live version of The Star-Spangled Banner ) as well as California Dreamin'; In My Life; Chico and the Man; Windmills of Your Mind; Rain; Marley Purt Drive, and 7 more.

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Product Reviews

There are numerous Jose Feliciano best-ofs, but this 16-track compilation does a good job of getting the essentials onto one disc if you're looking for a distillation of his most popular English-language recordings from his commercial prime in the late '60s and early '70s. All of his chart hits are here, as is his theme song for "Chico and the Man," a 1974 recording that's the only song on the CD not originally released between 1968 and 1970. The 24-track Australian compilation And the Sun Will Shine (on the Raven label) actually makes for a more comprehensive overview of the era if you can find it, and has the significant advantage of including "Felice Navidad," which is somehow missing from this 2007 anthology. Still, this does have a few covers not on the Raven collection on which Feliciano puts his distinctive interpretive stamp, including "California Dreamin'" and the Beatles' "In My Life" and "Yesterday." It also has his live, controversial-at-the-time 1968 reworking of "The Star Spangled Banner," which actually made it onto an official RCA single the following year. ~ Richie Unterberger, Rovi

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