Rick Nelson - Playing to Win
#7
January 1 1980
Ricky Nelson
Playing to Win
Genre: Rock and Roll
4 out of 5
Highlights:
Believe What You Say
It Hasn’t Happened Yet
(I know covers aren’t supposed to be highlights but, it’s 50s icon Ricky Nelson! What else would we expect?)
In a different world, Ricky Nelson is the American Cliff Richard. But, instead he’s just a 50s icon that doesn’t translate. Is a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll and way too gentle for my taste. And probably the rest of the world’s as well, cuz I don’t think this record made a dent.
Rick is gonna be mostly a covers guy, I know, but he does write some of his own songs and yet he opens with a tepid version of “Almost Saturday Night” a virtually unkillable song, but he does his best. It’ll put you to sleep and it also feels unfinished.
And it makes no sense since the next track, “Believe What You Say” is a bit of a barnburner. Why, man?
Song after song, Ricky shows that he’s a seasoned vet. I mean, “LIttle Miss American Dream” could be a big sing-a-long song. I mean, I wanna learn how to play it. It’s a cool backyard salon song.
His cover of Graham Parker’s “Back to Schooldays” is letter perfect and his John Hiatt song “It Hasn’t Happened Yet” is the most I’ve liked anything by John.
While I’m listening I’m remembering somethingI learned recently. The re4ason songs would “fade out” was so they wouldn’t leave you and you could be glided into the next tune on the radio or record. Hard stops are de rigeur today but that wasn’t the case, especially in the 50s-70s. All of these songs would benefit from the hard stop but that wasn’t the way things were done back then.
No comments:
Post a Comment