Customer Reviews

Best of 1958-1980 Come & Get Me

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Imperial Records tried to sell Jackie DeShannon as "Lady Love" in the late 1960s when her Catherine Deneuve/Francoise Dorleac flower child look was selling mildly psychedelic folk rock LPs like the brilliant "To Be Free" and "Put A Little Love In Your Heart." It was just one of the many guises DeShannon put on over the years to score in the marketplace. She came on early like a female Buddy Holly ("Buddy," "Baby"), a one woman girl group ("Hold Your Head High," "Should I Cry?"), Dionne Warwick and Supremes homages ("Come and Get Me" and the other Burt Bacharach productions and the "Are You Ready for This?" LP respectively) and more. She even did her versions of a Joni Mitchell LP ("New Arrangement"), her own "Dusty in Memphis" for Atlantic ("Jackie") and her Fleetwood Mac album, "You're the Only Dancer," with the dead-on Christine McVie soundalike, the great "Don't Let the Flame Burn Out." I grew up listening to Jackie DeShannon. She put out so many albums, many more than her generally more commercially successful peers, and the quality was conistent. Her voice is like burnished honey with a generous helping of seasoning salt blended in, and she sings with a great deal of heart and soul. She was a quick study, and could master whole genres of music as a vocalist and songwriter quickly. 29 excellent representations from her profilic output are presented here on this fine anthology, lovingly compiled by the fine Australian music writer, Glenn A. Baker. It must have been daunting to try and whittle down so many superb recordings to just 29, but Baker has done a proficient job. Standouts include the emotional "I Cab Make It With You," coy 60s statement "A Proper Girl," sweet Jimmy Webb cover "A Girls' Song" and the revelation of this CD for me, "I Don't Need You Anymore," a soundtrack ballad produced by Bacharach in 1980 that was dismissed by critics and the public when first released, but today sounds like 2:53 of sheer nirvana.

Junior High in the early 60's, jumping out at one was the raw and earthy voice of the great Jackie DeShannon, making first hit "You Won't Forget Me" memorable and many of us never did forget this awesome singer from that first indelible moment...should have been included in this collection! Each new release engrossing such as "Needles and Pins", "When You Walk In The Room" and a new artist of tremendous quality was born and these memorable original versions are and will always be definitive. "What The World Needs Now Is Love" released in the mid-sixties, became one of "the" greatest anthems of the great musical sixties and truly a defining moment in this classic era, worlds above and beyond the sad Music Industry today...soulful beauty of this Jackie vocal is breathtaking and the Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award is deserved for this glorious timeless classic. Burt Bacharach & Hal David wrote other DeShannon classics and the hauntingly beautiful "Come And Get Me" is richly engrossing and title of this tremendous collection, showing Jackie DeShannon as a great singer/songwriter and just plain great singer, who will grow & grow on any true music lover with each satisfying new listen. Nobody tops that Jackie DeShannon earthy blue-eyed soulful delivery and to cover her brilliant 60's-70's period a BOX SET is necessary to serve justice to Jackie and her fans. For a quick overview "Come And Get Me" serves well until a Box Set of her many great Lp's is produced. Stunning stand-outs abound such as a brilliant soul-infused "I Can Make It With You", late sixties mega-hit anthem "Put A Little Love In Your Heart", sounding as great & revelant today as when first released. "Ease Your Pain" is a soulful gem from the great and sadly overlooked "Songs", mesmerizing collection of amazing performances from early seventies, still the most satisfying version of this standard. Jackie DeShannon original "Vanilla O'Lay" from Atlantic Records masterpiece "Jackie", should have been a huge hit and with airplay this rocking & soulful gem would have topped the charts during this singer/songwriter period. "You Touch And You Go" is another soulful rocker sounding like a big hit from the classic "Your Baby Is A Lady" Lp, a truly great work deserving remastering, another great rocking & soulful collection of tremendous performances from the legendary lady! Brian Wilson joins on the enchanting "Boat To Sail" from the classic "New Arrangement" Lp, thankfully available on Compact Disc and one of the greatest female singer/songwriter collections of all time. Closing this sublime collection of musical gems is the haunting "I Don't Need You Anymore", from motion picture "Together", scored by Burt Bacharach, featuring a moving and gorgeous vocal from the great singer. Jackie DeShannon recorded many great things throughout the seventies, but with no radio support, these amazing works were appreciated by those who enjoy the finest in music, as a result had to wait twenty years for a new recording from this trailblazing artist and the new collection is another classic. "You Know Me" is a highly recommended singer/songwriter collection for those who love great songs and vocal artistry at its sublime best! Thank You Jackie for forty plus wonderful years and counting of many greatly moving masterpieces and keep them coming!!!

This compilation from the small independent Raven label in Australia offers a generous 29-track career retrospective of this prolific performer and even more prolific songwriter. Material is culled from many of the labels for which she recorded and reflects the variety of styles DeShannon would explore during her recording days. The tracks are a mix of hit and non-charting singles plus album tracks of distinction. It does not qualify as a comprehensive greatest-hits collection as several of her charted singles are absent and unfortunately, these omissions represent many of the singles that have not been available anywhere else either.

Sound quality is generally excellent and, with the exception of 1,2,5,7 and 14, tracks are in true stereo. An informative 16-page booklet with a number of photos makes up the liner notes completing the package. In this new package, Raven has offered up one of the better Deshannon collections available so far.

I can't believe how many songs Jackie sang that filled my youth: needles & Pins, ect. It was like meeting a long lost friend, after many years, and finding that she's grown better with age. The only thing that upsets me is that I went to two other "music" houses, and couldn't find anything by Jackie! I totally agree with Peter's review on the album cover photo: this is definetly not the way to sell CD's. jackie deserves better. But the quality of the CD, and Jackie.... Nice meeting you again my friend.

For committed fans of Jackie DeShannon, and count me in as one, this is a bit of a mixed delight. No question that the 29 songs, 75 minutes don't represent Jackie at her best, from 1958's rockabilly "Buddy" to 1980's sublime movie ballad "I don't need you anymore.

The plus points: nice recording quality, excellent liner notes with well chosen photographs, and a good choice of songs. A newcomer to Jackie's work will enjoy this album - and particular congratulations to Raven Records for bringing together material from Liberty, Imperial, Capitol, Atlantic, Columbia, Amherst and RCA sources.

Less good points: the front cover picture, a blurred representation of a woman who looks nothing like Jackie DeShannon, is a disaster. Do they want to sell this record or what? And for those who do collect Jackie's material, this is an unadventurous choice of songs. Only 6 have not appeared on CD before, and I could seriously quibble in particular with the meagre and predictable selections from Jackie's Capitol, Atlantic and Columbia output.

I'd like to see a sequel to this exploring some of Jackie's lesser known early Liberty material (and what about the material she recorded in the 50s for 4 or 5 other labels before joining Liberty? And there is allegedly a lot of material "in the vaults" from Atlantic and later. It would be good to look at this in the context of contemporary material from Carole King, Joni Mitchell and others.

To conclude: a good selection for people new to Jackie, or those having a passing interest in her work and wanting to know more. Not so good value for the committed fan, as we've had most of it, on CD, before.

Next on the horizon, Jackie DeShannon's brand new year 2000 album. Can't wait!

This compilation spans Jackie's career from the fifties to the start of the eighties, beginning with a 1958 tribute to Buddy Holly. There have been many tributes to him but this is the only one I know of that was recorded while he was still alive.

Jackie was more successful as a songwriter than as a singer although one of her two most famous recordings, What the world needs now, comes from the Bacharach-David songbook. Jackie's other famous recordings, Put a little love in your heart, is one of her own songs.

Here you can find Jackie's versions of some songs that became famous after other singers and groups had hits with them. Many people think that Jackie wrote Needles and pins - she didn't, but it was her version that the Searchers covered. It became a major international hit for them and this encouraged them to record some of Jackie's own songs, most notably When you walk in the room. Marianne Faithfull had her biggest UK hit with Jackie's song, Come and stay with me. In the eighties, Kim Carnes had a monster hit with Bette Davis eyes.

Aside from the famous songs, this collection contains many excellent songs that demonstrate Jackie's brilliance and versatility - some up-tempo rockers, some romantic ballads and some songs that veer towards folk. Jackie recorded plenty of other people's songs as well as her own. Apart from Needles and pins and What the world needs now, these include more Bacharach-David songs (A lifetime of loneliness, Come and get me).

As an introduction to Jackie's music, this is brilliant although I slightly prefer the earlier but harder to find Definitive collection, which focuses exclusively on her sixties music.