Ricky Nelson - Ricky Sings Again / Songs Ricky
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Free Music Notes for Ricky Sings Again / Songs Ricky
Free Music Review: Ricky the rocker!
Hit: 5 Stars
Back in the 50's, albums were considered secondary to singles. Many artists of that time put out albums that were merely both sides of their current hit, surrounded by a bunch of filler. Ricky Nelson was among the few (Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino) who gave us an entire album of quality material. In fact, Ricky was the only rock and roll artist besides Elvis to have a #1 album in the 50's. This CD contains two of his best, both from 1959. "Ricky Sings Again" is one of his most popular albums, partly because it contains 4 of his top ten hits, "Believe What You Say", "Lonesome Town", "Never Be Anyone Else But You", and "It's Late", all among the best tracks he ever recorded, but the other songs should not be overlooked. "One of These Mornings" is classic rockabilly, with a great slap bass break by James Kirkland, and James Burton imitating the sound of a train on his guitar. "Restless Kid" was written for Ricky by Johnny Cash, about his "Rio Bravo" role as "Colorado". "Old Enough to Love", a very pretty ballad, is typical of the teen oriented material Ricky often did. "You Tear Me Up" is another classic rocker. The second album, "Songs By Ricky", contains 2 more top 10 hits, "Sweeter Than You" and "Just a Little Too Much", and again, there are plenty of forgotten gems on the album. There's a hint of jazzy pop in "That's All" and "So Long", while "Half Breed", a John Loudermilk song, is pure country and western. James Burton practically steals the show with his guitar work on faster songs like "One Minute to One", "You're So Fine", 'You'll Never Know What You're Missing". Ricky's voice is smoother and richer here than on his first album, he really had one of the finest voices in all of rock and roll. He never overemotes, never tries to oversell the material, just delivers it smooth and sincere. The sound on these tracks is phenominal, and a lot of the credit for that goes to arranger/producer Jimmie Haskell, and Ozzie Nelson (Ozzie used to tell Haskell "give me too much bass and too much high end, because we lose it all when the songs are shown on television"). Kudos also to Capitol for the excellent remastering. Was nice to hear these albums in stereo, as my vinyl of both is mono. As for the bonus tracks, the most interesting is "Gloomy Sunday". Think of it as an even more depressed "Lonesome Town".Free Music Review: Two Glorious LPs By A R&R Hall Of Famer Rolled Into One CD
Hit: 5 Stars
These two Imperial LPs from late 1958/early 1959 were among the album best-sellers in their time, and here you get both with wonderful digital sound improvements - Ricky Sings Again (tracks 1 to 12) and Songs By Ricky (tracks 18 to 29), with 8 bonus tracks thrown in for good measure, five of them alternate takes on the album cuts.
Some of his best hit singles are also represented here, four of them from double-sided hits in 1959 - Never Be Anyone Else But You (# 6 Hot 100) b/w It's Late (# 9 Hot 100/# 30 R&B) and Just A Little Too Much (# 9 Hot 100 in summer 1959 b/w Sweeter Than You (also a # 9) - as well as Believe What You Say (# 4 Hot 100/# 6 R&B in May 1958), Lonesome Town (# 7 Hot 100 in November 1958 and, written by the great Baker Knight, said by one fan as "the place where Heartbreak Hotel is located," Old Enough To Love (# 94 Hot 100 when released as a single in 1963), and That's All (# 48 Hot 100 when released as a single in 1963).
Other Baker Knight tunes are at tracks 10, 18, 21 and 25), while the Burnette brothers, Johnny and Dorsey are represented in tracks 1, 2, 23, 24 and 26 for Dorsey, tracks 20 and 29 for Johnny, and track 3 by both brothers. A johnny cash-penned tune is also here, Restless Kid, and the arrangement is pure Cash.
The booklet contains the original LP notes (although you might need a magnifying glass to read them) along with six new pages written by actor/writer/producer James Ritz in February 2001. There is also a half a page titled Jimmie Haskell - A View From The Inside (Haskell is an arranger/orchestra leader who nacked, among others, Bobby Darin on many of his hits).
Several more great photos of Ricky are included as well. All in all, a beautiful compilation of the music of the man inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame in 1987 - its second year of existence.
Free Music Review: There Will Never Ever Be Anyone Else Like Rick Nelson
Hit: 5 Stars
I remember watching Rick Nelson on "Ozzie and Harriet" when he was Ricky and I liked his music. I liked it a lot, bought his records. Both of these came out in 1959 and if they were packaged separately they'd both have made my list, but since Capitol has seen fit to re-package them together, I'm putting them on my list as a single record. Two excellent records for the price of one. You can't beat that.
The set opens with the rocking "It's Late", a song you gotta love. How many guys have found themselves out too late with a girl and now have to face her dad's wrath. I know that happened to me on more than one occasion. Lucky for me Vesta's dad liked me. And I did marry his daughter.
This set also includes "Lonesome Town" which, I believe is one of the best songs Rick has ever done. "Half Breed" is also on this set, a song that gets left off all those Rick Nelson compilations. The song is only two minutes, two seconds long, but it's got a message. Everybody, no matter the color of their skin, is equal, but sometimes you gotta stand up for your rights. A man is a man as long as long as he can stand and think straight.
Listening to this set you can see why Rick Nelson became the rocker he did. It's too bad his career was cut short. There'll never ever be anyone else like Rick Nelson.
This Record is Number 7 on my list of the Best Thirteen Records of 1959.
Free Music Review: Ricky Sings Rockabilly!!!
Hit: 5 Stars
Capitol has done a wonderful job remastering & re-issuing Ricky's complete Imperial Records catalog on a series of "two-fer" cd's (2 Albums on 1 CD). This particular release finds Ricky at his best. He had matured vocally since the release of his 1st LP in '57, had assembled an outstanding band that included the legendary James Burton on lead guitar, & had a cache of songs that define original rock-n-roll.Ricky has a magnificent catalog of material that holds its own next to Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, or any other of his 1950's contemporaries. In many instances, he surpasses these artists thanks to the consistency of his band, superior production work, an amazing ability to find/write some truly outstanding songs, and had the counsel of his father Ozzie, a musician and entertainment pioneer himself, who truly had Ricky's interests as a artist in mind rather than worrying about his 10 percent.
Ricky is without question one of the true founding fathers of Rock-n-Roll, & maybe with Capitol's great job on reissuing his best material (Imperial Years 1957 - 1962), he will begin to receive the attention he rightly deserves. All of the cd's in this series come with the original artwork, as well as several bonus tracks and feature outstanding essays by James Ritz.
Free Music Review: Nelson`s Best Imperial Albums
Hit: 5 Stars
Ricky Nelson`s 3rd and 4th album for Imperial compiled on one CD. The albums were originally released at a very short interval in 1958/1959. And it`s really impressive that some many great recordings were made in such a short period of time.In my opinion these are the most consistent albums Nelson did for Imperial.
Filled with great tunes by some Rick`s favorite songwriters like Johnny and Dorsey Burnette, Baker Knight and even one by Johnny Cash!
The guitar playing by James Burton is terrific; varied and innovative. Have a listen to the guitar break in "One Minute to One", the Burnette rockers "Believe What You Say", "Just a Little Too Much", "I`ve Been Thinking" and Baker Knight`s "You Tear Me Up" and "You`ll Never Know What You`re Missing"
Great ballads that fit Ricks`s soft voice perfectly like "Lonesome Town", "Sweeter Than You" (fine alt. version), "Be True To Me", "Never Be Anyone Else But You" and "Halfbreed"
These recordings equals those of Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran as some of the best of the late 1950`s.
I never cared much for Elvis, sorry!