Bear Family Records

Did You Know?

• Bear Family started with the double LP Going Back to Dixie by Bill Clifton.
• The label reissues rare recordings in CD format in small amounts.

Artists

Bear Family has put out major box sets for a huge roster of musicians, from Bob Wills and Merle Haggard to Dean Martin, Bill Haley & His Comets, and the Everly Brothers, plus names like Ann-Margret, Pat Boone, Fats Domino, Doris Day, Nat King Cole, Gene Autry, Dolly Parton, Jerry Lee Lewis, and many others. The label also goes deep on artists with smaller followings. It has released two separate five-CD collections for Johnnie Ray, a five-CD set for Merle Travis, six-CD boxes for Slim Whitman and the Orioles, a seven-CD Rod McKuen set, eight-CD collections for Lonnie Donegan, Del Shannon, Neil Sedaka, and Gene Vincent, a nine-CD Johnny Burnette omnibus, and a 16-CD Jim Reeves set. For Doris Day, Bear Family put out five separate box sets that together add up to 26 CDs, covering everything she recorded for Columbia Records.

Compilations

Bear Family has put out hundreds of multi-artist collections, each built around a specific theme or style. Among them are a 10-disc set of protest songs, an 11-disc anthology of Jewish and Yiddish performers from the mid-1930s, and a seven-disc box featuring 195 different recordings of "Lili Marleen." Other releases include music from the TV show Bonanza, a four-disc set of early 20th-century British music hall songs, a 10-disc collection of late-1930s calypso, a 52-disc history of pop music, and a 26-disc survey of the country charts from 1945 to 1970. In 1996, the label issued a 16-disc Jim Reeves box called Welcome to My World, which includes over 75 previously unreleased tracks and numerous demos.