Jackie DeShannon or Tuesday Weld?
Mr. Michael W. Biggs | 03/23/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"There are certain choices one shouldn't have to make. Even when you really don't have a chance of a choice. So let's make it one from music and one from movies. Jackie DeShannon is an easy choice for the women rock star you wish you could marry. And if she wasn't a big star then she should have been. This is a great record, great production, great vocals, great songs. Songs by a young Randy Newman, alone and with Jackie; Jack Neitzche, with Sonny Bono and with Jackie; Jackie on her own,(the magnificent and influential "When You Walk In the Room", covered by the Searchers and, great as they were, they coudn't hold a candle to the original); and, especially, Jackie with Sharon Sheeley, girlfriend of Eddie Cochran and songwriter extraordiaire, on her own, ("Poor Little Fool" for Ricky Nelson), and with Jackie, ("The Great Imposter" for The Fleetwoods.) And Jackie DeShannnon bringing it all together. There are a few covers which you may not need but they aren't bad and you can program them out if you want your DeShannon straight, no chaser; and with 20 tracks that leaves plenty on which to get drunk. If you only bought one Jackie DeShannon, should this be the one? Probably not but then we wouldn't be talking on the same wave length. One doesn't need everything she ever did and there are a couple of over-view compilations which do a good job. You do need "Jackie", recorded for Atlantic and reissued by RhinoHandmade: buy it for the original and accept the 12 bonus tracks as bonuses. And then there is ... e.g. the two-pack reissue of "Don't Turn Your Back on Me" c/w "This Is Jackie DeShannon" ... Watch for sonwriting credits for The Byrds, Brenda Lee, Irma Thomas, The Righteous Brothers and others. There is a lot to have and this record should be part of it."