Jackie at her peak
Peter Durward Harris | Leicester England | 05/13/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Jackie DeShannon made a lot of excellent music in the sixties, some of which can be found here. The first twelve tracks made up the original album Are you ready for this?, originally released in 1966, with the remaining tracks having been recorded between 1964 and 1967. One of the bonus tracks, What the world needs now is love, provided Jackie with her first American top ten hit in 1965, but only because Dionne Warwick rejected the song. (Dionne must have changed her mind about the song, because she eventually recorded it.) After a series of minor hits, this looked as if it was the big breakthrough that Jackie was looking for as a singer, but it was not to be. Five of the other tracks here were released as the A-sides of singles, but none were really big hits.
This collection is about much more than that one classic song. Jackie wrote six of the songs here (Are you ready for this?, To be myself, Love is leading me, Find me love, Be good baby, Where does the sun go?), while the Bacharach and David team contributed five other songs (Windows and doors, So long Johnny, To wait for love, A lifetime of loneliness, Come and get me) besides What the world needs now is love. Hal David co-wrote another song here, The wishing doll, with Elmer Bernstein for a movie, Hawaii, that co-starred Julie Andrews.
The remaining songs include great covers of Will you still love me tomorrow? (taken at a slightly faster tempo than the original by the Shirelles), Call me (first recorded by Petula Clark but an American hit for Chris Montez), You don't have to say you love me (a huge international hit for Dusty Springfield, whose own version was itself a translation of an Italian song). The set is completed by 500 miles from yesterday (written by Warren Zevon, whose music Jackie discovered long before Linda Ronstadt helped make him famous) and two other great songs (Music and memories, Come on down from the top of that hill).
As ever with Jackie's music, there is much to like about this collection. If you are a Jackie DeShannon fan, you'll love it."
Track Listings (20) - Disc #1