What I Deserve

Kelly Willis | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 23, 1999)
• Original Release Date: February 23, 1999
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Rykodisc
• ASIN: B00000I5EE
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #161,448 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Kelly Willis's first full-length offering since 1993 is one of the better country records you will hear, alternative or otherwise. She covers tunes by the likes of Paul Westerberg, Nick Drake, and Paul Kelly, and cowrites with the Jayhawks' Gary Louris and John Leventhal. If none of the songs quite rises to the heights of the Steve Earle, Jim Lauderdale, and Joe Ely material on her 1991 masterpiece Bang Bang, it is still solid stuff nonetheless. Any new song by Dan Penn ("Got a Feelin' for Ya", cowritten with Chuck Prophet) is already worth the price of admission, but Willis herself penned what may be the best tune here, "Talk Like That," an ode to the comfort of a familiar accent far from home. What I Deserve was recorded on a tight budget without a record deal, which may be why the backing, though well played (especially by guitarist Prophet), verges on sounding unfinished--or, it may be the alternative-country sound she was intentionally seeking. Either way, Willis's sublime voice and delivery reside on a more sophisticated plane. If listening to her throaty warbling of Nick Drake's "Time Has Told Me" or her sultry rendering of the Penn tune doesn't give you "chicken skin," it is time to check your pulse. --Michael Ross

Product Description

No Description Available.
Genre: Popular Music
Media Format: Compact Disk
Rating:
Release Date: 23-FEB-1999

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What Kelly Willis Desrves is a Bigger Audience, April 22, 2000

By 

Brian D. Rubendall (Oakton, VA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: What I Deserve (Audio CD)

This is the best mainstream country album of 1999. Hands down, no argument. Kelly Willis performs the same kind of country music as the Dixie Chicks. Why she is not more popular is a mystery. "What I Deserve" is an absolute gem in which Willis brings out the best in songs written by others, including her husband, Bruce Robison. Highlights include "Wrapped," "Not Forgotten You," and "Cradle of Love." Willis's voice is as fine as country music has to offer and she manages to avoid the slick production that ruins many modern Nashville products.

If you like this album, check out Bruce Robison's "Wrapped" which features the song of the same name. It'll give you a completely different perspective.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A superbly realized album by unique country/rock singer, June 5, 2001

By 

hyperbolium (Earth, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: What I Deserve (Audio CD)

When MCA and A&M were unable to market Willis to commercial radio, the Austinite struck out on her own to record this brilliant fourth album. A subsequent deal with Ryko has resulted in the most solid release of her career. Her voice retains the country flavor of earlier albums, but the songlist and style have expanded, eluding such simple classification.

Willis' confidence as a songwriter has grown, as she contributes five new titles and a reworking of her little-heard "Fading Fast." Her songs emphasize the exquisite dichotomy of her voice: world-weariness delivered with an unfailing resolve to hang on. Whether it's a lost lover or the loneliness of misplaced family roots, she walks the edge between recovery and disaster, unable to find the former and unwilling to fully give herself up to the latter. In addition to her own works, she picks thoughtfully from the catalogs of Bruce Robison, Damon Bramlett and Paul Kelly, and less successfully from the works of Nick Drake and Paul Westerberg.

What Willis clearly deserves is the critics-darling reception afforded Lucinda Williams, and the popular acclaim (and sales) rung up by heavily groomed hacks from Nashville's factories.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not what I had expected, January 31, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: What I Deserve (Audio CD)

I am a long time fan of Kelly Willis...since her self titled album, Bang Bang and the concerts I have attended. This is not like any other Willis album. I guess for me, I wasn't expecting it to be. If I had to compare it to her other works I may have been disappointed. I took it as it is...great. It fits so many of my moods. I just love her voice. I do have to say she comes across better on CD. She is kind of inhibited on stage. I recommend this to any one who loves a powerful female voice and is tired of mainstream music. I have always felt that there is so much more interesting music to be found that what we are fed on the radio stations.