Hoo boy, do I have some pearls (and no swine) for you...

I like all of my APNS compilations, obviously. But hearing some of these back, years after making them, while prepping them now for release on the blog I realize little issues with flow, sequencing or song choice that I might do different now. But these comps are what they are because they are what they were when I put them together. However, you can still have favorites in the middle of all these albums that you love. Some you just love a little bit more. And All Pearls No Swine Volume 11 is one of those. It is, no doubt about it, one of my personal favorites from the series. 

Why? For one thing, it has - as do all volumes - a number of fantastic songs, but overall maybe more than some of the others. And it definitely has a flow that some of the other APNS volumes don't have, there are no dead spots here and I think it flows really nicely from its different sections and selections to others. 

Our three favorite Frenchmen Yves, Serge & Victor are back with more fab country rock, and so is Danny "Kooch" Kortchmar, still in a New Orleans kinda mind. Doug Firebaugh offers another small Americana vignette and when I say small, I mean it. "Moon Upon The Sea" is 35 seconds long, but the'yre fabulous 35 seconds. Country offer up another fine - you guessed it - country song and Jay Bolotin is back with "Dime Novels", a hidden classic that I now belatedly wonder why I didn't keep it on my Bolotin compilation. Ah well, it works fine here. 

And those are just the APNS alumni. We have a bunch of new faces, some known, some less so. Sometimes it's all in the name. You probably know "Danny's Song" and the singer's voice also sounds strangely familiar. That's because it is indeed Kenny Loggins, and vocals and arrangements are very similar to the later hit version he recorded with Jim Messina. But he spent some time in the Florida group Gator Creek, where he cut this first version. You of course also know the James Gang, but this is the less heralded version without Joe Walsh, though the combo of vocalist Roy Kenner and guitar slinger Tommy Bolin is a more than capable replacement at times, as for the hot rocker "Wildfire" presented here. And you might remember Dana Gillespie, one-time Bowie paramour, who had some mighty singing pipes lodged in some mighty...erm, good lookin' packaging. (You might have noticed above)

And we got the same healthy assortment of self-published and mini-label acts,mainly from the country and country folk ranks. Say hello to, among others, Jim Wise & Sky High, Paul Edwards and Richard Dobson. Fine music all around. 

So, let's get to it.