Customer Reviews

Ronee Blakley

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
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When I saw the film "Nashville" I immediately became a Ronee Blakley fan and bought the soundtrack because of her. After reading various Internet forums, it's obvious that I'm not the only one who's glad her albums are getting rereleased on CD after being hard to find for 30 years.

I have mixed feelings about this album. I'm afraid it didn't quite live up to my expectations. It starts off with "Dues", which she would later sing in "Nashville". This version is very good, but not quite as great as the "Nashville" version. This track is followed by two ballads, "Sleepin' Sickness Blues" and "Attachment". The lyrics are quite nice, but musically, the songs are rather forgettable. Ronee Blakley is a great singer but on these tracks, she strains her voice at the upper level of her register. "Down to the River" is a very catchy gospel themed song. As a non-Christian, this is not my favorite genre, but this song is very good, the catchiest song on the album. After this, the album continues in the same style as the two previous songs. "I Lied" is beautiful. Without a doubt the best song on the album is "Bluebird", which was performed by Timothy Brown in "Nashville". Ronee's own version is far superior than the one in the movie. This song and "Dues" are the only country songs on the album. The rest are in the singer/songwriter tradition.

If you're a new fan of Ronee Blakley and know her from "Nashville". Start with buying the soundtrack. You will want more, and this album is worth buying for "Bluebird", "Down to the River" and "Dues" alone. You may love the other songs as well, but don't expect this to be a pure country album. Her second album, "Welcome", is better.

It's so nice to have this album out on CD; it's long overdue. It's unique, the kind of album that could have been made by only one person (and probably at only one time in that person's life). Stylistically it's a little of this, a little of that; idiosyncratic, beautiful, alternately toe-tappin', melancholy and lyrical-- and it all coheres into one great whole, both very much of its time and timeless. Love it.

I discovered Ronee while screening songs for Judy Collins while a Senior Staff Producer at Elektra Records. I produced this recording resulting in Robert Altman casting her in the lead role in his classic movie "Nashville"--she was nominated for two Academy Awards--her second recording was produced by Jerry Wexler who we have sadly lost recently. I believe this recording from the early '70's influenced country music today.

This is one of the all-time great unknown albums. Hopefully a lot of people will buy this CD, but I doubt that Ronee will ever take her rightful place alongside Joni and Ani and a few other legendary lady troubadours. One would have thought that her starring role in "Nashville" would have sold a lot of this LP but it's been a buried treasure that I have mined many times in the last 35 years. It's even better now on a crystal-clear CD!!

Hi, what a great thing to hear Ronee's Albums again, this time on CD format. I hope we hear new things from her at some point, or at least a tour?? I heard Ronee many times in Cambridge and in New York City in the 1970's.

I searched for one song on this CD for > 30 yrs. Hadn't realized she was the artist and fell in love with her in 'Nashville' (the movie). Wish she were more prolific! Wonderful singer.

Ronee Blakley's self titled debut album is simply amazing. I just love her song, "Dues". She has a lot of heart and emotion in this album which you can hear in just about every song. She has a natural gift for song writing and singing and it's simply beautiful. Do yourself a favor and don't miss either of her albums, you won't be sorry.

A couple of years ago I spend a little time, worthwhile time I think, running through the male folk singers and songwriters of the folk revival of the 1960s. The premise, at the time, was to compare the fates of those singers to the man who has stood up as the icon of the era, Bob Dylan. I went through a litany of such male artists like Jesse Winchester, Jesse Colin Young, Tom Paxton, Dave Van Ronk, Tom Rush and the like and found no particular common denominator other than they were still performing (those who were still alive) at some level acceptable to them, if not at Dylan's level and status.

As another aspect of that premise I looked at some (fewer) women folk singers and songwriters in comparison to the acknowledged "queen" of that folk revival, Joan Baez. Alas, other more political work interfered with a more extensive look at the "not Joan Baezs". I will begin to make partial amends here, with the artist under review, Ronee Blakley. Oh, you are not familiar with the name? That is probably fair enough unless you might have gotten around to the local folk club circuit in the 1970s, or seen her as Barbara Jean- a Loretta Lynn prototype in Robert Altman's classic, edgy homage to country music, "Nashville". Or perhaps, some other movies like "Nightmare On Elm Street".

You, in any case, probably do not know her from her two great albums produced in the early 1970s and composed of mainly her own songs. That is a shame because between her majestic voice and her fiery, sometimes acid-etched, lyrics, including taking on some very topical subjects like the murder of Black Panther Fred Hampton by the Chicago police and touting all the varieties of female independence and assertiveness she did some very good work. And then "puff". No more music, at least recorded music. I have not been able to find out exactly why but she certainly takes her place in that group that I, sadly in this case, call one-note "janies".

So what is good here: "Dues", of course, from "Nashville" that got me tuned into her works, although the soundtrack version from that movie might be better; the above-mentioned righteously bitter "Fred Hampton"; the pathos of "I Lied", and the spunky "Bluebird" also from "Nashville" which I think kind of spoke for her life at that time.

This is only one of two albums ever released by Ronee Blakley--both before her appearance in Robert Altman's film 1975 film NASHVILLE as a pseudo-Loretta Lynn character--and demonstrates her considerable talent. She had the potential to be both a great songstress and actress, but, apparently, her personal demons prevented her from ever being the star she could have been in both genres.