Ricky Nelson - Greatest Hits

Ricky Nelson | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (December 27, 2005)
• Original Release Date: 2005
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Capitol
• ASIN: B000BVB50C
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #916 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #4 in Music > Pop > Teen Pop
  • #9 in Music > Rock > Oldies & Retro > Rockabilly
  • #22 in Music > Rock > Country Rock

Track Listings

1. Travelin' Man (1961)

2. Hello Mary Lou (1961)

3. Poor Little Fool (1958)

4. Lonesome Town (1958)

5. Believe What You Say (1958)

6. I'm Walkin' (1957)

7. Waitin' In School (1958)

8. Everlovin' (1961)

9. Fools Rush In (1963)

10. Teenage Idol (1962)

11. Stood Up (1957)

12. Be Bop Baby (1957)

13. My Bucket's Got A Hole In It (1958)

14. It's Late (1959)

15. Never Be Anyone Else But You (1959)

16. I Got A Feeling (1958)

17. Sweeter Than You (1959)

18. Young Emotions (1960)

19. A Wonder Like You (1961)

20. Just A Little Too Much (1959)

See all 25 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

When talking about the history of Rock 'N' Roll, Rick 'Ricky' Nelson tends to get overlooked. While he didn't create the genre, brought the new style of music to the masses when his character began performing it on the Ozzie & Harriet show in the late '50s. He became a teen idol and recorded some of the finest music of the era including 'Poor Little Fool', 'Lonesome Town', 'I'm Walking', 'It's Late', 'Travelin' Man', 'Hello Mary Lou' and more. In the '60s, he dropped the 'y' and became Rick and scored more hits. His final hit, the self-penned 'Garden Party', was one of the biggest hits of his career and, once again, he helped to introduce the vibrant and young Country Rock movement to the masses. 25 tracks. EMI Gold. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Satisfying, But Omissions Keep It From Being Definitive, December 29, 2005

By 

Steve Vrana (Aurora, NE) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ricky Nelson - Greatest Hits (Audio CD)

Rick(y) Nelson was one of the most successful artists of the rock 'n' roll era. Just two years after his debut single (a cover of Fats Domino's "I'm Walkin'") Nelson had charted fifteen hits--and seven of them sold more than a million copies! Only Elvis sold more records.

Granted, it didn't hurt that Nelson had a national television audience with "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet." But it obviously took more than movie idol good looks to sustain a music career that would last nearly three decades.

Many of Nelson's biggest Imperial hits featured future Rock and Roll Hall of Fame guitarist James Burton (who would become Elvis' guitarist in the Seventies). To further the Elvis connection, Nelson also frequently utilized the The Jordanaires, including on a cover of Elvis' "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You," which reached No. 29 in 1957 (but not included here). Nelson also benefited from the songwriting talents of Baker Knight ("Lonesome Town," "I Got a Feeling") and rockabilly stalwarts Johnny and Dorsey Burnette ("Believe What You Say," "Waitin' in School," "It's Late").

Even though Nelson was still a month shy of his seventeenth birthday when he debuted "I'm Walkin'" on the April 10, 1957 episode, his success was no fluke. He went on to create a body of work that included some of the earliest country/rock recordings. (Although "Garden Party" Is the only song from this era of his career; all other tracks are from 1957-1963.) Eventually Nelson would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1987) and the Rockabilly Hall of Fame (2003).

This latest collection is obviously intended as a memorial in that Dec. 31 will mark the twentieth anniversary of his untimely death at the age of 45. As such it does a good job of bringing together twenty-five of his thirty-six Top 40 hits. [Notable omissions are his 1964 Top Ten hit "For You" and the Bob Dylan cover "She Belongs to Me," which was a minor hit in 1970.] With a playing time of just under sixty minutes, these omissions keep this set from being definitive, but nonetheless a satisfying single-disc anthology. Those wanting more are encouraged to pick up 2000's 4-disc Legacy box set. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Back to an age of more simple, fun, and innocent music, July 11, 2006

By 

Dwight Blubaugh "MichiBlue" (The only Eaton Rapids on Earth, MI, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ricky Nelson - Greatest Hits (Audio CD)

When I saw this CD advertised on TV, with its 25 hits all on one disc, I quickly decided I wanted this definitive Ricky Nelson collection if I could find it at a decent price, which wasn't long in coming. Ricky Nelson was not terribly innovative, borrowing much from others like Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bill Haley, and Fats Domino (Nelson covered Domino's far-superior "I'm Walkin'," though much better than Pat Boone's covers of rock 'n' roll innovators). However, Nelson made consistently good pop music - innocent, catchy, hummable tunes, bringing rock 'n' roll / rockabilly to an ever-widening audience. This CD includes 25 of Ricky Nelson's 30 songs that hit the Top 25, mostly top 10 - In that respect, the CD does not disappoint.

I've always had a pet peeve about greatest hits collections that were not compiled chronologically, and this CD is yet another of those. I've talked to many others who feel the same (also reflected in many Amazon reviews). However, I've solved that problem with my purchase of a laptop with a CD burner, and can make my own listening copies - I can now copy songs in any desired order, which is great because many greatest hits packages are thrown together in seemingly random order.

Another advantage of this, which I did not foresee, is the amount of information I've learned about many of the musical artists online while researching the chronology of their music. Wikipedia is often a great resource for this, and most famous musicians / musical groups have their own website - you can find just about anything on the Internet if you look hard enough.

Checking Rick Nelson's website (the discography section), I discovered that if a song didn't make the top 25 (of whatever chart they quoted, probably Billboard), it's not on this greatest hits package. Almost everything that DID make the top 25 is here (though 4 of the 5 omissions are top 10 songs). Also, I'd never liked the song "Garden Party," but after reading about what inspired it, I have much more appreciation for it, all due to surfing the Internet to find song order.

In case you want to make your own "chronological" listening copy, or set the playing order on your CD player to hear these songs in the order they were originally released as singles, I've listed them below, in the order they were released as singles, along with Ricky's five top 25 songs that were not included here (some, or likely all, of which could have been, since this collection is only 59 minutes long). A-sides are listed first, as both sides of many of the singles charted - I listed the date only once when both sides of the same single charted.

4/57 (#2) - A Teenager's Romance (NOT INCLUDED ON THIS COLLECTION - instrumental?)
/ (#4) - I'm Walkin'
8/57 (#4) - You're My One and Only (NOT INCLUDED ON THIS COLLECTION)
9/57 (#3) - Be-Bop Baby
11/57 (#2) - Stood Up
/ (#18) - Waitin' in School
3/58 (#4) - Believe What You Say
/ (#12) - My Bucket's Got a Hole in It
6/58 (#1) - Poor Little Fool
9/58 (#7) - Lonesome Town
/ (#10) - I Got a Feeling
2/59 (#6) - Never Be Anyone Else But You
/ (#9) - It's Late
6/59 (#9) - Just a Little Too Much
/ (#9) - Sweeter Than You
11/59 (#20) - I Wanna Be Loved
4/60 (#12) - Young Emotions
11/60 (#25) - You Are the Only One
4/61 (#1) - Travelin' Man
/ (#9) - Hello Mary Lou
9/61 (#11) - A Wonder Like You
/ (#16) - Everlovin'
2/62 (#5) - Young World
7/62 (#5) - Teenage Idol
11/62 (#6) - It's Up to You
4/63 (#4) - Old Enough to Love (NOT INCLUDED ON THIS COLLECTION)
5/63 (#25) - String Along (NOT INCLUDED ON THIS COLLECTION)
9/63 (#12) - Fools Rush In
12/63 (#6) - For You (NOT INCLUDED ON THIS COLLECTION)
6/72 (#6) - Garden Party

This music will be enjoyed for many more years. I even recently heard "Garden Party" on some restaurant's TV commercials - Applebee's maybe?

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Beware-download version doesn't contain all 25 tracks & bit rate varies from track to track, June 22, 2008

By 

Dean Buzzell (Jacksonville, FL) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ricky Nelson - Greatest Hits (Audio CD)

Amazon indicates 25 tracks available on the product overview page, but they don't tell you that you get only 22 when you download the album. After you've downloaded it and discover the discrepancy you have to listen to some customer service tech in India tell you a hundred times that there are only 22 tracks, and then you have to take them to the product overview page, tell them to scroll down to the 'preview' link, then to the 'see all 25 tracks' link before they'll actually believe that you're telling the truth. But they'll STILL try to tell you 'if you click the link for the download you'll see only 22 tracks'. I finally got a #3.95 credit out of the tech that worked on me, but bottom line, WHY offer only 22 of 25 tracks for download?? Had I but seen a SINGLE disclaimer saying 'not all tracks come with download version, I'd have passed, and purchased this album from iTunes.

In addition, the bit rate varies from song to song. Amazon says they're all 256 kbps, but 2 of them are 192, 7 are 224, 4 are 256, and the remaining 9 are 320. If fidelity matters to you, then purchase the disc, or purchase the download from iTunes, and get a better quality download without the headache of dealing with some tech on the other side of the world that you can't clearly understand.

This purchase has been a BAD experience, and I'll definitely confine my digital music purchases to iTunes in the future.