Johnny Kidd & The Pirates - The Johnny Kidd Memorial Album & Your Cheating Heart (2003)

This CD combines two U.K. compilations on Johnny Kidd & the Pirates onto one disc, in a pretty handy CD -- Memorial Album was a superb collection of Kidd's best released tracks plus a lost intended album side or two, while Your Cheatin' Heart was a lesser assembly of whatever was left over from that earlier platter; between the two there are a lot of A- and B-sides represented, all bracketed by Kidd's first and last singles. The material overlaps the EMI double-CD set of Kidd's complete output, although the selectivity employed on the two original releases may be to the liking of people just discovering Kidd's work, or who just want a collection of his best released sides -- the annotation is a little sketchier than usual for BGO, especially in dealing with precisely who is playing, but the state-of-the-art sound is impressive and the assembly of the best A- and B-sides may well impress listeners who have never been persuaded of Kidd's worth or importance.