More Songs by Ricky/Rick Is 21 [Bonus Tracks]

2 LPs on 1 CD: MORE SONGS BY RICKY (1960)/RICKY IS 21 (1961).
Personnel includes: Ricky Nelson (vocals, guitar); James Burton, Billy Strange, Allen Reuss, Tommy Tedesco (guitar); Plas Johnson (tenor saxophone); John Rotella, Teddy Edwards (saxophone); Manuel Stevens (trumpet); Bob Knight (trombone); Gene Garf, Ray Johnson, James Rowles (piano); James Kirkland, Leroy Vinnegar, Red Mitchell, Joe Osborn (bass); Richie Frost, Frank Capp (drums); Robert Gillman (percussion); Jordanaires, Glen Campbell (background vocals).
Priducers: Rick Nelson, Ozzie Nelson, Jimmie Haskell.
Compilation producers: Bob Hyde, James Ritz.
Includes liner notes by James Ritz.
Digitally remastered by Bob Fisher (2001).
Liner Note Author: Gary Blailock.
The third in a series of four CD reissues containing the complete Imperial Records recordings of Rick Nelson combines his fifth and sixth albums with his five singles from the same period, November 1959 to May 1961. The story told here is one of musical exploration, as Nelson's early success as a teen heartthrob who liked to play Sun Records-style rockabilly faded and he began casting around for other approaches to maintain his popularity. After the relatively disappointing performance of a pair of singles, "I Wanna Be Loved" and "Young Emotions," ballads that peaked only in the Top 20, he made More Songs by Ricky, an album that found him attempting to update decades-old standards like "Time After Time" and come up with brass-heavy production numbers in emulation of then-popular Lloyd Price. As annotator James Ritz writes, the best way to appreciate the results is to "take everything he had already done musically and throw it out the window," but even if you do, you are still left with an artist who sounds comfortable only when he gets back to rocking, notably on the Dorsey Burnette composition "Hey Pretty Baby." Amazingly, however, he pulled out of this tailspin, artistically and commercially, with his sixth album, Rick Is 21, on which he developed a new pop/rock sound that contained echoes of his rockabilly past but also made its peace with early-'60s pop, especially on the double-sided hit "Travelin' Man"/"Hello Mary Lou," and also on other custom-written songs by Dave Burgess, Jerry Fuller, Gene Pitney, and Johnny Rivers. As a result, the collection might be subtitled "The Fall and Rise of Rick Nelson," and if the going gets rough early on, the tale has a happy ending. [More Songs by Ricky is presented for the first time in true stereo here.] ~ William Ruhlmann