Sonny Day: The Collection (Ode)

It's a shame that it took Sonny Day's death last year to prompt this compilation, as one of this country's great journeyman musicians his career spanned from the early days of rock'n'roll and then through the Beatles/Motown era when he effortless shifted his style, taking in country and soulful material, and in '85 covered Springsteen's little known Saving Up.
Sonny Day was a man who moved with the times, which was to his credit.
However it doesn't make for an especially coherent collection in these 15 tracks which come with a helpful booklet outlining that musically itinerant career.
Kicking off with Saving Up it flips back through the decades so MOR string-enhanced material sits alongside bluesy sounds, country cornerstones like Wolverton Mountain, early 60s yakety-sax on The Minimum Wage (a kissing cousin to Merle Travis' classic 16 Tons), Chuck Berry's Johnny B Goode, Merseyside-influenced pop (Baby Jane, Tell Me Why, Things Will Be Different) and even The Hawaiian Wedding Song.
The remarkable thing about Day is that he was quite convincing in each genre.
Yes, it barely stands still musically -- but then neither did Sonny Day I guess.