String of Pearls Prairie Oyster VIK Recordings, 2000   Buy it online Tracks 1: Man in the Moon 2: Goodbye, So Long, Hello 3: Will I do ('Till the Real Thing Comes Along) 4: One Precious Love 5: Everybody Knows 6: Did You Fall in Love With Me 7: Louisette 8: Such a Lonely One 9: Black-Eyed Susan 10: She Won't Be Lonely Long 11: Unbelievable Love 12: One Way Track 13: Canadian Sunrise 14: The Last Time I'll Feel Blue   Reviewed by Lincoln Cho	The name is unappetizing and gives only a small clue. Prairie Oyster. A cowboy euphemism for the part of a bull that's removed to take his very bullness away. While that might seem to imply chorus-like falsettos sung with a twang, only the twang reaches to the heart of this particular matter. This is honky tonk roots music in the purest form available in the wild today. Western swing with none of the zing removed. That is, the music of Prairie Oyster gives you the feeling it was conceived and recorded without the slightest thought as to where it might end up on a chart. Or even -- if this seems possible as we bank into the end of 2000 -- if it might end up on a chart. That is, music created for the joy of it, in the belief that a musical form can be strong on its own, without having to conform to the ideas of what-is-country that chartbusting acts must follow in order to fit into the form that's been created. Prairie Oyster doesn't fit any forms. And, it seems, they've been around long enough not to care. In the turbulent scene that was made-in-Canada country music at the beginning of the 1990s, Prairie Oyster were the undisputed champions. Along with enough CCMA (Canadian Country Music Association) awards to fill a ten-gallon hat, Prairie Oyster took home the Juno -- roughly Canada's equivalent of the Grammy -- award for country group or duo of the year six times: in 1986, 1987, 1991, 1992, 1995 and 1996. The CCMA awarded the group their version of that award every year between 1990 and 1996. Clearly, Prairie Oyster were the homegrown favorites who, in those busy years, consistently cranked out top-selling albums on their own terms. New country has not been overly kind to Prairie Oyster. At least, not the portion of it that gets a lot of airplay and sells records. In the midriff-bared, Shania-dominated world of Canadian country, Prairie Oyster sounds... well... a little tired. Heck, Ms. Emmylou herself might sound tired in the reflection of Shania's animal prints and re-workings of 1980s pop tunes. It's just a whole new jungle. Russell deCarle gave his own take on this in a 1997 interview, saying that he felt that new country, "is almost an apology for the stuff that came before. And I find that kind of disturbing." Not disturbing enough, thankfully, to even begin to join the parade. With Prairie Oyster's well-named greatest hits collection, String of Pearls, both longtime fans and the curious get the chance to hear the very best of Oyster from the glory years of the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, as well as some of the band's newer, tighter, though less widely received work. It's a strong and worthy compilation. Founding members Russell deCarle, Dennis Delorme and Keith Glass are still very much in evidence, with deCarle's distinctive vocals and Delorme's steel guitar continuing to give the band its signature sound. John P. Allen -- "Johnny" on the current cred list -- joined the original three in 1982, prior to the recording of any albums, bringing his fiddle, mandolin and sometime guitar playing. Songwriter and keyboardist Joan Besen, who joined the band in 1985, can be attributed with much of what made Prairie Oyster so chartworthy. Almost half the songs on String of Pearls -- among them the greatest of the greatest hits -- were written or co-written by Besen. Charlie Cooley, who has been acting as the band's drummer for the last few albums and tours, is not given full band member cred on this album, though he's featured in the band photos and gets a little slot -- albeit at the bottom of the list -- to give his brief thanks. The Chris Whiteley-written "Man in the Moon" is from Oyster's first album, Oyster Tracks and has been re-cut for inclusion on String of Pearls. The new recording features the guest vocals of Jenny Whiteley, feature harmonica by Chris Whiteley and mandolin by Dan Whiteley, making this new production of "Man in the Moon" something of a family endeavor for the Whiteleys. Another re-cut, "The Last Time I'll Feel Blue," written by Keith Glass, is dedicated to the memory of early Oyster supporter, Doug Sahm, formerly of the Texas Tornados and the Sir Douglas Quintet. The 14 songs included on String of Pearls -- one song for each year of the band's existence -- make for a cohesive whole. It's an album of incredible clarity that does a great job of showcasing this versatile and committed band of performers. | July 2000 Lincoln Cho is a musician and freelance writer.	With Prairie Oyster's well-named greatest hits collection, String of Pearls, both longtime fans and the curious get the chance to hear the very best of Oyster from the glory years of the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, as well as some of the band's newer, tighter, though less widely received work. It's a strong and worthy compilation.