TRAIL-BLAZING MASTERPIECE~BRAVO JACKIE DESHANNON!!!
Bradly Briggs | TOLUCA LAKE, CALIFORNIA | 04/20/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
""Put A Little Love In Your Heart" is one of the true classic athems that defined the sixties and this is the great original by its composer Jackie DeShannon who is the forerunner of the Singer Songwriter movement and the Singer-Songwriter who also happens to have a great voice...stunning vocal performances fill her great work in a collection of fascinating songs and superb vocal performances!!! Jackie DeShannon's soulful voice is beautifully showcased in a wondrous collection that is free flowing and richly varied and in addition her true lost masterwork "To Be Free" from the following year is featured and the five terrific songs from this extraordinary work add to this great original release and the Jackie originals are superb and for simply a stunning vocal performance the brilliant medley "You Just Keep Me Hanging On-Set Me Free/Hurt SO Bad" is turned completely inside out and sung with so much soul and passion that it is amazing that this incredible performance was not a #1 Hit Single as it sounds like one...not in this collection from "To Be Free" is a haunting definitive version of the Leonard Cohen classic "Bird On A Wire" which is one of the greatest vocal performances from the great musical sixties and this mesmerizing performance has yet to be released on cd!!! "Mediterranean Sky" is dreamy and a great ride and the two superb Christmas songs that close this winning collection of classic songs and performances is an amazing surprise that should have become annual holiday standards! Jackie has had a large number of hits (the other sixties athem the original version of "What The World Needs Now Is Love" which alone gives her Legendary status!)but from her great body of work nowhere close to the commerical success that should have happened and hopefully releases such as this wonderful masterpiece will help to correct this and give Jackie DeShannon the acclaim that her talent deserves!!! Bravo Jackie and keep on rocking!!!"
Jackie's biggest hit and nineteen other great tracks
Peter Durward Harris | Leicester England | 05/15/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Jackie had two American top ten hits, but the title track to this collection was the only one to make the top five. Unlike her other big hit (What the world needs now is love), Jackie actually co-wrote Put a little love in your heart, so she derived special satisfaction from having her biggest hit with one of her own songs. Many others have covered it, including the Dave Clark Five, who had a minor British hit with it in 1969. Annie Lennox and Al Green recorded a duet version in 1988 that made the American top ten and also became a minor British hit. Ella Fitzgerald, David Ruffin and Dolly Parton are among others who have covered the song.
The first twelve tracks of this re-issue appeared on the original vinyl album of the same name, with seven of the eight remaining tracks being culled from various single releases, though some of them also appeared on Jackie's follow-up album, To be free. One track, Try a little harder, is making its public debut here, being previously unreleased. Taken together, the twenty tracks show, if you didn't know already, that Jackie was a versatile performer. Some of her songs were in a folk-rock style, some are classed as blue-eyed soul (notwithstanding Jackie's brown eyes) and some are mainstream sixties pop. Though not evident on this collection, Jackie also dabbled in easy-listening jazz. I love singers who show such versatility but the music industry generally doesn't, because it makes marketing them more difficult. Maybe that's a significant reason for Jackie's lack of consistent commercial success as a singer.
For those who enjoy Jackie's versatility, this collection should prove most enjoyable. Of course, the best song here is Put a little love in your heart, but what else is here? The follow-up single to the title track, Love will find a way, made the American top forty. My favorites among the other songs are Mama's song (the story of a single mother valiantly raising seven children), Movin' (a road song) and Brighton Hill (a song that I first came across on a compilation of Jackie's music when I lived in a similarly-named suburb of Basingstoke - definitely not the same place.) I also love the two Christmas songs that round off this collection. It seems that they were Jackie's only Christmas recordings and were released as either side of a single. Because they are at the end of the collection, you can stop the CD playing after eighteen tracks if you play it at a time of year when you don't want to hear them. Also worth a special mention is Jackie's covers medley (You keep me hanging on / Hurt so bad), which is very dramatic and distinctive.
There are so many other wonderful songs here that I haven't mentioned, but suffice to say that anybody who calls themselves a Jackie DeShannon fan should love this album."
Track Listings (20) - Disc #1