Natural Mystic: The Legend Lives On

Despite its massive commercial success, , the 1984 compilation, was not an impressive best-of of the group's full career. It was assembled to highlight 's U.K. hit singles of the late '70s and seriously under-represented his early . You might think, therefore, that 11 years later, when finally got around to releasing what is in essence "Legend, Vol. 2," the label would redress the imbalance. No such luck. As its title, , suggests, this "rest-of" has the same flaw as its predecessor. ( the leadoff track, is from 1977's , an album that had already provided five tracks to .) Although there were few additional U.K. singles, this collection gathers them up, including and the newly reconfigured both posthumous tracks heavily overdubbed long after 's death that sound little like his classic style. The rest of the album scatters tracks from such later albums as and , though there are four songs (including one new bonus recording for the 2002 reissue) from , an album ignored by , one of them 's sole Hot 100 chart entry, Still, the absence of defining early-'70s songs like from either compilation is so bizarre that the only explanation one can speculate is a financial one. Maybe due to recording or publishing contracts has some reason to avoid putting ' early classics on their compilations. In any case, adds to the frustration of fans who expect compilations to actually feature the highlights of the band's career. ~ William Ruhlmann