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If you've got any country feelings at all, give this man your undivided attention. Keith Whitley still has a whole lot to say about country music, and about ourselves.' -Robert K. Oermann If Keith Whitley's legacy is a tree, casting an imposing shadow on all of country music, then these powerful 1982 recordings are his hard-country roots. Drenched in the echoes of classic hardcore honky-tonk influences (Frizzell, Jones, Haggard), the remarkable music on Sad Songs and Waltzes predated - and doubtlessly influenced - the acclaimed 'New Traditionalist' movement that reinvigorated country music in the late 1980s. The performances here are the most resonant and emotional of Whitley's entire career: classic country imbued with Keith's own unique sense of twang and timing. Available on CD for the first time, they have been lovingly remixed and tastefully overdubbed for reissue by original producer JD Crowe. In addition to all of 1982's Somewhere Between album - the record that first introduced Whitley as a honky-tonk singer beyond compare - Sad Songs and Waltzes boasts 5 previously unreleased cuts. Longtime Whitley admirer Alison Krauss contributes harmonies, as does noted writer/performer Carl Jackson and Diamond Rio's Gene Johnson.