Well, if you go somewhere like CDNOW (click) and put "Columbia Country Classics" under "album title" in the search box, you'll come up with a lot of Country Classics, not all from Cloumbia.
I especially like the Columbia Country Classics series, which includes a lot of terrific stuff. There is a five volume set of collections, titled "The Golden Age," "Honky Tonk Heroes," "Americana," "The Nashville Sound," and "A New Tradition." These CD's have 23 to 27 cuts each, which is pretty darn generous for country recordings. It's all wonderful stuff, too. Also in the "Country Classics" series, Columbia has a number of generous "The Essential So-and-So" CD's and box sets, from people like Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash, Bill Monroe, Roy Acuff, Ray Price, Bob Wills, Carl Smith, the Hoosier Hot Shoots, a Hank Williams Songbook CD, and Gene Autry (gee, don't they have women?). The CD's are distinguished by the tan background on their covers - I guess it's supposed to look like vellum, or cowhide, or both.
Well, they do have women on some of the cuts on the collections, but apparently Columbia did not have one woman who warranted her own "Essential" CD. Despite the lack of women, these are darn good CD's. And I have Emmylou CD's, so what need have I of other women?
-Joe Offer-