During his brief career, Johnny Horton was a singer of exceptional range, knocking out great sides no matter whether they were honky tonk, rockabilly, traditional country, boogie, country-pop or, as is the focus of this Bear Family collection, ballads. (One of his most famous songs is a ballad, a pristine yet haunted version of "Lost Highway" that ranks as one of the most otherworldly sides ever waxed in Nashville.) This is, admittedly, a one-sided portrait of Horton. The Ballads of Johnny Horton misses his first-rate uptempo material like "Honky Tonk Man," focuses almost entirely on B-sides that rarely equaled their better-known flipsides, and oddly, it excludes most of his historical ballads (many of which were hits). Still, for those who look at Horton (correctly) as one of the five or six best voices in country music history and want a great rarities collection without shelling out for a box set, there's a parade of solid material here. As for classics, "Lost Highway" is present, as are two big hits, "When It's Springtime in Alaska (It's Forty Below)" and "North to Alaska." From there, the obscurities outnumber the well-known songs, including a few historical songs ("Comanche [The Brave Horse]," "Johnny Reb," "Jim Bridger") and several tragic-romance stories ("Everytime I'm Kissing You," "Meant So Little to You," "All for the Love of a Girl").