Excellent sampler-but need more

This is a long overdue release and contains some of the best performances from Tom Paxton during his early, formative years on the Elektra label. As others have stated, there are omissions in this collection-thus begging the question-when will these be released on cd?
Tracks like "Morning Again", "Crazy John", "Saturday Night" are only available by hunting down the original vinyl.
At the very least, "Tom Paxton 6", his best record, deserves a cd release. The tracks on this anthology from this record sound wonderful on cd.
Also deserving a cd release is his Reprise label record "Peace Will Come"- an album right up there with "Tom Paxton 6".

This is the collection to get

This disc has all of the "hits," if one may use such a term with this sort of music, from Paxton's phenomenal first three accoustic albums. If this is what you're looking for - and it is certainly something worth looking for -- this disc is the disc to get, clearly preferable to the Vanguard best-of collection. (For most of Paxton's best material on Vanguard, just get the Newport Folk Festival albums, which have so very much to recommend them in addition to Paxton's presence.)

The surprise here was the lesser known and harder to fine material from 68-71. Although his voice sounds a bit strained or hoarse at few points, some of the songs are astonishingly beautiful. Really. I even generally enjoyed the plush arrangements, which typically detract from singer-songwriter types. Perhaps that's due to another surprise: some real heavy hitters play on these sessions, including David Grisman, Richard Davis (!), and Hubert Laws.

Twenty-six tracks make this an attractive value, too. A good compromise between LP era collections that omit too much good material and expensive box sets that are overkill for casual fans.

unmatched

Tom is the greatest folk song writer of our era...this collection totally won me over to his politics and motivated me to travel to Hazard, Kentucky in the summer of 1970 to see what Tom was singing about...we met some hippies who turned us on to some moonshine and we watched as the town clock went around for 8 hours...Tom actually devoted a rendition of the song, High Sheriff of Hazard" to me and a friend at a concert at Brooklyn College. Tom is the ultimate songwriter-storyteller. I love rap music now but its roots of protest where embedded in Tom's protest songs. Enjoy!