Jackie's Songs are Gold
W. Schultz | Detroit | 06/06/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Jackie DeShannon is one of the most underappericated singer songwriters of the 60's and 70's. Best know for "Put a Little Love in Your heart" and writing "Betty Davis Eyes" there was plently more GOLD in the years she bounced around from Label to label (Liberty, Captiol, Atlantic, Columbia, Amherest) trying to find get into the stride of hit records. While there were more commerical "Misses" than hits, that by no means reflects the quality and depth of the material. "Songs" was her only Lp on Captiol, this ressiue includes bonus tracks from the vault as well as the excellent 1971 Lp. Also don't miss "Jackie, Plus" On Atlantic, "New Arrangment" on Columbia."
Jackie's 1971 Capitol recordings
Peter Durward Harris | Leicester England | 05/30/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"After many years on the Liberty label, Jackie had a brief period on Capitol. During that time, she recorded one album produced by Chips Moman that wasn't released, another album produced by Jackie with Eric Malamud that was released, then a few more tracks that weren't released. The masters for those last few tracks have apparently been lost so this CD is made up of those first two albums. The set begins with the album that was released, Songs, which includes one track from the unreleased album. It seems that Jackie moved to Capitol in the hope of greater artistic freedom, but I suspect that if she got it, she would have stayed longer than she did.
The music here is certainly different from Jackie's earlier music, but that music was itself diverse. Jackie made a definite attempt to get back to her roots, which were a mix of rock, country and R+B. I've never noticed much country in Jackie's music, but there is a little. West Virginia mine (a song about the plight of coalminers) is the kind of song that you might expect a country singer to record, but I don't recall hearing any covers of this song. Lay lady lay is a cover of Bob Dylan's classic song from his Nashville skyline album, which was as near as Bob came to recording a country album of his own. Ease your pain is a cover of a Hoyt Axton song. Hoyt had some success as a country singer but, like his mother, is best remembered as a songwriter.
Apart from West Virginia mine, Jackie wrote three other songs here (Now that the desert is blooming, Bad water, Salinas), all of a high quality. Johnny Christopher co-wrote three of the others. Pick of the three is the opening track (Keep me warm) but the other two (Johnny Joe from California, Show me) are also well worth hearing. None of them will be as famous as two other songs that Johnny co-wrote (Suspicious minds, Always on my mind) but I don't think Jackie ever recorded either of those two songs. This set does include notable covers of And it stoned me (Van Morrison), Gabriel's mother's highway (Arlo Guthrie), Child of mine (a Goffin-King song) and Sunny days (Randy Edelman).
This may not be the most accessible collection of Jackie's music that you'll come across. You really need to play it a few times to appreciate it, but there is much to enjoy if you let it grow on you."
Track Listings (20) - Disc #1