Tracks: 1) Lover, Come Back To Me; 2) All The Way; 3) Dum Dum; 4) On The Sunny Side Of The Street; 5) Talkin’ ’Bout You; 6) Someone To Love Me (The Prisoner’s Song); 7) Do I Worry (Yes I Do); 8) Tragedy; 9) Kansas City; 10) Eventually; 11) Speak To Me Pretty; 12) The Big Chance.
REVIEW
Sometimes it’s just the itsy-bitsy things, you know. There is not a whole lot of difference between the performance of ‘Tragedy’, a melancholic country-pop ballad written by Fred Burch and Gerald Nelson, as done by The Fleetwoods — not the first recorded version, but clearly the one Brenda was covering — and by Brenda Lee on this album. Of course, Brenda’s super-professional Nashville recording is cleaner, deeper, more multi-dimensional with the addition of backing vocals and strings, but none of that really matters. What matters is that the Fleetwoods go "you’ve gone from me, whoooah whoooah, tragedy!" where Brenda goes "you’ve gone from me, whoa oh oh oh, tragedy!", leaving the drawn-out whooah whooah’s to the backing vocalists. It’s difficult to put into words what exact difference does this «staccato-style» addition of a set of glottal stops throw into the pot — but a direct analogy would be the same kind of thing that the Beatles did to ‘Baby It’s You’ when they covered the Shirelles, adding that teeny-weeny hiccup to "whoa-uh, many many many nights go by" that Shirley Owens never had. Maybe there’s a bit of implied emotional lightness to it, a tiny hint of rising above the bleakness of the situation, or just a touch of self-irony. I don’t really know. But one thing I do know for sure is that it makes the song more complex — and more fun. Even somewhat more believable on an emotional level, perhaps.
That’s the key to appreciating Brenda Lee’s «early grown-up» period: she has her own way of weaving adolescence into maturity and maturity into adolescence that you wouldn’t easily get from any other artist at the time. This is why, although All The Way is basically just Emotions Vol. 2, with most of the material recorded by the same musicians only a few months away from the previous sessions, it is just as listenable and enjoyable, perhaps a little thinner in terms of relative highlights but also, perhaps, a little more consistent on the whole — at least this time around, she does not attempt to take on the impossible, such as making Uncle Ray proud with another ‘Georgia On My Mind’.
Curiously, the lead single, preceding the LP by about a month or so, was not a pop ballad this time, but a grittier (and also fluffier, at the same time) pop-R&B hybrid, co-written by lady songwriters Jackie DeShannon and Sharon Sheeley: in name and lyrics, ‘Dum Dum’ probably brought on memories of LaVern Baker’s ‘Tweedlee Dee’, but in melody — and in spirit — it certainly owed more to Bo Diddley’s ‘Diddy Wah Diddy’. After all that stuff like ‘Teach Me Tonight’ and ‘I’m Learning About Love’, on ‘Dum Dum’ the Little Miss «not-yet-17» Dynamite finally sounds like she’s ready to teach her partner a thing or two about having fun: that unaccompanied "I couldn’t love you any more than I do..." line drips more sex than any random Marylin Monroe performance, and must have been the primary reason for the public to send this all the way up to #4, even if I still secretly hope that some of that influence should be ascribed to Floyd Cramer’s mood-setting organ part, eerily similar to the not-yet-recorded ‘Green Onions’ by Booker T & The MG’s.
It might be a little too cheesy and sleazy, but on the whole it’s harmless, catchy fun that shows Brenda Lee now knows how to get «dirty» without drowning in the dirt — so it’s actually a bit sad that it is the only example of such an approach on the entire album. There are a few solid upbeat recordings as well: the fast, playful cover of ‘Lover, Come Back To Me’ that opens the LP works well for Brenda, as does her jog through Ray Charles’ ‘Talkin’ ’Bout You’ (certainly more adequate than ‘Georgia’) and ‘Kansas City’ (although I’d still rather have Wanda Jackson lead me through that one than Brenda Lee, if we’re talking girls’ version of the song). However, all of these are examples of delightful emotional exuberance rather than dominant sexuality, and now we know that Brenda Lee can handle dominant sexuality... hey, gimme more!
Ah well, could be too much of a good thing anyway. So instead, try to dig those ballads, like ‘Eventually’, another attempt to get Ronnie Self to repeat the success of ‘I’m Sorry’ but a little less epic on the whole. I have no idea why Brenda decided to sing the hook as "evenCHH... walleee!", making a weirdly unnatural syllabic border; maybe she thought there’d be a whiff of the cigarette-holding femme fatale image associated with that extra friction, or she just wanted to give us something to think about within the context of this otherwise rather unexceptional, if pleasant, melancholic shuffle that somehow feels far more conventional than what she does with ‘Tragedy’. Then there’s the title track, originally made famous by Sinatra back in 1957; not a great improvement, but she does deliver a powerful finale that has to be respected, if not necessarily admired. Where there is an interesting improvement is in her interpretation of ‘On The Sunny Side Of The Street’: this tune, rightfully performed by just about everyone from Ted Lewis in 1930 to Armstrong and Sinatra as an optimistic bout of positive energy, is taken at a slow, melancholic pace, feeling like anything but an attempt to cheer you up. Already the opening "Grab your coat and get your hat!" gives sort of a "let’s get our sorry asses out of this Shitsville!" vibe, and the very existence of a «sunny side of the street» seems more like a questionable hypothesis than an established fact.
Maybe it was an accident, of course, but overall, this reversal of the song’s original mood leads me to observe that Brenda’s image, as a whole, was gradually turning over to the bleaker side — most of the ballads here have a pessimistic, melancholic, or at least over-anxious atmosphere to them. With Side A of the record ending in ‘Someone To Love Me (The Prisoner’s Song)’, and Side B immediately picking up with Jerry Lordan’s ‘Do I Worry? (Yes I Do!)’, what more evidence do you need to validate that kind of statement?..
Almost as if they realized at the last moment that the album was coming out darker than expected, they finish it with two intentionally upbeat songs — the danceable pop ditty ‘Speak To Me Pretty’ and the even faster-paced ‘Big Chance’, which sounds like a cross between Elvis’ ‘Mystery Train’ and some passionate gospel number. They’re likeable, and Brenda does an excellent job whipping herself up into a frenzy on the latter, but they still cannot shake off the idea that "this look I’m wearing, it’s called a frown" (from ‘Eventually’) is the album’s slogan, regardless of Brenda’s attempt to force a smile on the front sleeve. Which is all right by me: Brenda’s brooding feels natural, only occasionally over-dramatic and mostly quite reasonable for the «young adult» period. Throw in the usual Nashville quality, and you get yourself another highly enjoyable, if not terribly original or adventurous, mood piece from an era of innocence that did not take its mood pieces more seriously than they deserved.
Only Solitaire reviews: Brenda Lee
Kansas City is one of my favorites from the era. Not particularly this version. George, you are zooming into my subconscious. A subject you know much about. I was born 1957, my parents played music going constantly on car and home radio in my youth (God bless them!). Somehow, good music lives forever in my mind and soul. And what a time to absorb it. I'm excited to read your reviews going forward. I was there. It's part of my being and life. You are such a fantastic read and deeply appreciated!!