Review: Ricky Nelson - Ricky Nelson (1958)
Tracks: 1) Shirley Lee; 2) Someday; 3) There’s Good Rockin’ Tonight; 4) I’m Feeling Sorry; 5) Down The Line; 6) Unchained Melody; 7) I’m In Love Again; 8) Don’t Leave Me This Way; 9) My Babe; 10) I’ll Walk Alone; 11) There Goes My Baby; 12) Poor Little Fool.
REVIEW
The biggest formal difference between Ricky’s first and second albums is the arrival of a completely new studio (and touring) band — Ricky’s first proper band, in first, comprised of generally young musicians, including the now-legendary James Burton on guitar, James Kirkland on bass, and Richie Frost on drums. One might suppose that with all that fresh blood, Nelson’s sound might become sharper, or looser, or both, what with 1958 still being a relatively good year for rock’n’roll values and all. Unfortunately and paradoxically, precisely the opposite thing happened: Ricky Nelson, apparently so titled with twice as much imagination as simply Ricky, ends up much less exciting and intriguing than its predecessor.
In the previous review, I tried to point out that if you wanted to treat that record as something slightly more than light pop entertainment, it would be possible to focus on the near-mystical «dialog» between Ricky’s morose, echoey voice and the deep, jumpy, slapp-happy bass of Judd Denaut — the combination had a certain unique playfulness to it that could not be found on contemporary records by the more rambunctious rockers. Alas, that sound is all but gone on Ricky Nelson, which goes for a marginally louder, noisier approach on its rocking numbers, which is still nowhere near as loud as noisy as Ricky’s true competition, yet totally loses the subtlety of the previous album.
Good case in point: opening number ‘Shirley Lee’, the cover of a recent single by Bobby Trammell, which was probably brought to Ricky’s attention by Burton and Kirkland, who played on the original recording. It is faster and denser than Trammell’s version, but not as crunchy and raw, and Nelson himself sounds distant and cavernous, as if fighting for Gene Vincent’s turf, which would be a hopeless fight under any conditions. The fast and raucous rockabilly sound is decent, but there is absolutely nothing outstanding about it — not even James Burton’s lead guitar playing, fast, fluent, and precise, but more or less «texbookish rockabilly», as I’d call it. A couple of tracks later, the same disappointment hits with ‘Good Rockin’ Tonight’, closely based on Elvis’ version but with a smoother, less flashy sound and a quieter, less passionate vocal delivery that does not have much in the way of mystique to it. Still later, the same kind of defacing awaits Roy Orbison’s ‘Down The Line’, then Fats Domino’s ‘I’m In Love Again’ — and so on, and on, and on.
At this point, it is difficult not to admit that Ricky makes for a far more convincing teenage idol than a rock’n’roller: the slow, romantic ballads that almost mechanically inject themselves in between all of the rocking tracks are consistently more memorable and enjoyable than the latter, if only for the reason that Ricky’s crooning is becoming less predictable, while his rocking voice stays as predictably monotonous as ever. Thus, he does a great job on the old country song ‘Someday (You’ll Want Me To Want You)’, bringing out all those subtle shifts in overtones, gliding from higher to lower frequencies with the ultimate sexiness in a way that would be unreachable even for the likes of Gene Autry. He also debuts his own composition ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’, not much in terms of melodic originality but very nice in terms of how Ricky’s own tenor contrasts with the Jordanaires’ backing vocals — the suave glide of his "oh baby...", echoed by the deep bass "OH BABY" of the backing vocals, is quite an aural delight.
The album’s most successful and best remembered recording was ‘Poor Little Fool’, a song written by 15-year old Sharon Sheeley after her breakup with Don Everley which ended up providing Ricky with his first #1 entry on the Billboard Top 100 charts. Melodically, it is a nice hybrid of classic country with girl-group stylistics, i.e. the quintessential «country-pop» track, and I have to wonder whether Sheeley’s specific decision to donate the song to Ricky, as opposed to any other rocker out there, had anything to do with his decidedly «anti-masculine» looks, as in, «the likeliest male performer to perform this song about being dumped from a female perspective». Regardless of the circumstances, this is indeed the kind of material much better suited to Nelson’s voice and persona than ‘Shirley Lee’ or ‘Down The Line’, and while I am not sure that its melody or vocal hooks automatically qualify it for a potential #1 over most of the other ballads that Ricky performs here, it at least sort of makes sense that it ended up charting much higher than, for instance, ‘Waitin’ In School’.
Just for the record, the other two Ricky Nelson singles from that same period (early to mid-’58) were ‘Believe What You Say’, another fine little pop-rocker co-written by the Dorsette brothers (it would later end up on Ricky Sings Again), and a rockabillified version of Hank Williams’ ‘My Bucket’s Got A Hole In It’ because every respectable rocker has to make an old Hank Williams song into a rock’n’roll tune or suffer the consequences. It wasn’t a particularly memorable tune from Hank, and it certainly is nothing special as a Ricky Nelson rocker. But, like just about anything on this expressly mediocre record, it is totally listenable and danceable if you’re in the mood for a very bland Fifties-theme party.
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