At a time when it seemed that traditional country music might recede into the background in America, Ricky Skaggs showed via these albums that it could sell in huge quantities. As things turned out, the revival didn't last, although George Strait, Alan Jackson and others have also done their bit to revive traditional country music. The two albums here contain plenty of great music, mostly featuring old songs from the sixties or earlier, though including some original or more recent songs.
Between these two albums, you'll find five #1 country hits (Crying My heart out over you, I don't care, Heartbroke, I wouldn't change you If I could, Highway 40 blues) and the #2 country hit You've got a lover, along with many other excellent songs, my favourite among the other tracks being Waiting for the sun to shine and One way rider.
These two albums helped to establish Ricky as a mainstream country artist of considerable importance for a few years. He eventually returned to the bluegrass world from which he came.
These Ricky Scaggs albums from the 80s are as fresh and sonically superb as they were when originally released. Scaggs is the benchmark for all country music albums since. Just about everything played by any country music musicians in the past 30 years was heard first on these albums. Wonderful. .