Rick Nelson Reissued Material

Bright Lights & Country Music --- Country Fever - Many of you have called and e-mailed regarding Rick's country recordings, They are being re-released and here's some info. Ace-CDCHD 670 - By the time Rick Nelson recorded the two country albums that make up this 2-on-1 reissue, he already had a decade of experience behind him. He enjoyed phenomenal success after singing a five year recording deal with Imperial Records back in 1957. The majority of his early hits; "Be Bop Baby," "Stood Up," Believe What You Say" and the like were to become classic hits in the field of rock'n'roll. When hard-driving rock began to soften towards the early 1960's, Rick turned his hand to beat ballads and continued his success with the Decca Record company after signing a lucrative 20 year contract in 1962.

During the first couple of years with Decca, Rick's string of successes continued; part of Decca's investment was returned as "String Along," "Fools Rush In," "For You," and "The Very Thought Of You" hit the charts....but then, suddenly, the hits dried up.

Rick had always enjoyed country music and although he was never regarded as a country singer, much of his early success had strong country connections. Both BRIGHT LIGHTS and COUNTRY FEVER were recorded in Decca's west coast studios and sometime after the 1966 release of the BRIGHT LIGHTS album, Rick said: "When I first decided to cut those records, I wanted to prove the point that good country music could be recorded here in the west, without having to go to Nashville" ...and on Listening to these two albums you will realize that he was right!

Rick augmented his regular four piece band by adding Glen D. Hardin, Clarence White and Glen Campbell to the country sessions. It was, however, the superb muisicianship of James Burton, who put down his guitar in favor of slide dobro, that gave each and every one of these tracks its cutting edge. Many of the songs on the BRIGHT LIGHTS album had already enjoyed chart success and, by the time Rick's versions reached the airwaves, the fans were already aware of the material. Consequently, "Bright Lights & Country Music", "Louisiana Man," "Truck Driving Man," and "Hello Walls" were soon to be regarded as important steps in Nelson's career.

The COUNTRY FEVER album, recorded in 1967, continued in the same vein. Again, the songs of established country songwriters were used to great effect; the songs of Merle Travis, Willie Nelson and the legendary Hank Williams helped put COUNTRY FEVER in the Country charts....and Rick Nelson once again became one of the most sought after artists in America.

Bright Lights and Country Music
Truck Drivin' Man
You Just Can't Quit
Louisiana Man
Welcome To My World
Kentucky Means Paradise
Here I Am
Bright Lights And Country Music
Hello Walls
No Vacancy
I'm A Fool To Care
Congratulations
Night Train To Memphis

Country Fever Take A City Bride
Funny How Time Slips Away
The Bridge Washed Out
Alone
Big Chief Buffalo Nickel (Desert Blues)
Mystery Train
Things You Gave Me
Take These Chains From My Heart
(I Heard That) Lonesome Whistle Blow
Walkin' Down The Line
You Win Again
Salty Dog

"DAD, I WANT to make a record..." Thus, according to legend, began the recording career of Ricky Nelson. In the wake of Elvis, the winter of 1956-57 saw many an American teenager wanting to make a record. However, such was the ideology of teenage rebellion that few would have considered going to their parents for assistance. Even fewer could have gone with any expectation that Mum or Dad could help make that dream a reality.

But then, Eric Hilliard Nelson was not exactly your standard American teenager. At age 16, he was a showbiz veteran who was probably as well known to America's youth as Presley. And although his father, Ozzie, didn't own a record company, he was the producer and star of the long-running television series, "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet' on which 'Little Ricky' was a featured player as the youngest member of the Nelson family.

Ozzie Nelson was a Thirties band leader who turned his attention to radio in 1944. The outcome of this was a nationally-syndicated situation comedy show, "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet', the last-named being his actress/singer wife. In 1949, Ricky and his brother David joined the show's cast, playing themselves. The show transferred successfully to television in 1952 - it was to run until 1965 - and the whole family starred in a feature film, "Here Come The Nelsons." Thus, by 1956, when young Ricky Nelson asked his father to help him make a record, the request seemed natural. A brief career as a teen idol was, at the very least, clearly in the cards.

Ozzie Nelson made the necessary phone calls, a contract with Verve was signed and Ricky went into the studio to cut three sides. Problems at once occurred. Ricky wanted his cover of Fats Domino's "I'm Walkin" to be the main title, while his parents and Verve wanted the ballad, 'A Teenager's Romance', as the A-side. Their concern was to market Ricky on the basis of his role in "Adventures," in which his cheeky lopsided grin and "I don't mess around, boy" catchphrase suggested rebelliousness but went no further. Parental opinion won the day, but to everyone's surprise both sides made the Top Twenty, in 1957, selling a million copies. Ricky Nelson had gained acceptance as both rock'n'roller and teen idol.

The contrast in style and direction between the two sides of Nelson's first disc was to reverberate down the years of his career. The lush empty balladry of "A Teenager's Romance" suggested a future as a vacuous teen idol, a cute image to sell records with. "Im Walking," with cheerful enthusiasm, wasn't the www.rockabilly rock'n'roll of Presley or Perkins - but then Rick Nelson was middle-class, not a poor white Southerner - yet it succeeded in creating that sense of pure unalloyed joy at being young and alive that characterized so much of the best of white rock'n'roll.

Verve's lack of sympathy with Ricky's rock'n'roll desires was made clear when they released another romantic epic, "You're My One And Only Love" as the follow up. Lew Chudd of Imperial Records - the company for which Fats Domino had recorded the original "I'm Walkin" - moved quickly in mid-1957 and signed Nelson to a long-term contract that was to last seven years and bring the company 36 Hot Hundred titles (many of which were double-sided hits).

Along with the move to Imperial came a toughening-up of the Nelson sound. First Chudd helped assemble an all-important band with James Kirkland (later replaced by Joe Osborne) on bass, Butch White (later replaced by Ritchie Frost) on drums, Gene Garth on piano and James Burton on lead guitar. The band had previously backed Bob Luman and were all www.rockabilly players par excellence.

After Scotty Moore and Carl Perkins, James Burton was the most fluent guitarist in the Southern www.rockabilly style. His work with Nelson and other artists on the West Coast throughout the Fifties and Sixties (before he became the leader of Presley's touring band in the Seventies) virtually kept the www.rockabilly style alive.

Nelson's singing style was always clipped and clean, rather than raw and casual. Assisted by the lead guitar playing of Burton or, on the earliest sides, Joe Maphis, Nelson and the group created the synthesis of country, www.rockabilly and rock'n'roll out of which West Coast country rock would eventually emerge.

Moreover, Nelson had the good sense to seek out new young songwriters, like the Burnette Brothers, who together and separately provided songs like "Waiting In School" (1957), "Believe What You Say" (1958) - which, a decade later, was to become the theme song of Nelson's revived career as a country rocker - "It's Late" and "Long Vacation" (both 1959) and "My One Desire" (1960). He also recorded songs by Baker Knight, who wrote over 20 songs for Nelson, including "Lonesome Town" (1958) and "There'll Never Be Anyone Else But You" (1959), as well as songs by his producer, Jerry Fuller ("Travelin' Man" in 1961) and by Gene Pitney ("Hello Mary Lou." also in 1961).

With the obvious exception of the early Burnette rockers, the vibrancy of "I'm Walking" rarely figured on Nelson's Imperial sides. In its place was the gentle, wistful sound, typified by "There'll Never Be Anyone Else But You," which was wholly unique. A change of musical climate was around the corner, however. Whereas before 1960, Nelson had been a gentler Eddie Cochran figure singing honestly about teenage emotions, thereafter he was just one of many teenage idols competing for attention.

Nelson tried to broaden his career but, despite the marvellous impetus of a part in Howard Hawks' Western "Rio Bravo" in 1958, the movie didn't quite work. His performance as Colorado, the young gunslinger, was more than worthy of the good press notices it received, particularly for his duet with Dean Martin on "My Rifle, Pony And Me" and his soloing of "Cindy," but from then on his acting career went downhill. The song he commissioned for the film from Johnny Cash, "Restless Kid," wasn't used, and then the next part he was offered was in "The Wackiest Ship In The Army", a film whose title tells all.

Surprisingly for someone with a showbiz background, the Nelson career was sputtering to a halt. By all accounts, part of the reason was his declining interest in both the music scene and life as a teenage idol - in 1959, the Nelsons had to erect an electric fence around their home to keep away the fans - but the major reason seems to have been a genuine confusion as to what he wanted to become and a lack of managerial direction.

Nelson clearly wanted to develop - he dropped the "y" from his Christian name in 1961 - but he was rapidly becoming a has-been as rock'n'roll moved into its high-school phase where pizzicato strings, gimmicky arrangements and emotions were endlessly provided by a series of fabricated teen idols. Nelson's quiet rockers were suddenly as unfashionable as the Sun sides of Elvis Presley.

He remained with Imperial until 1963, when he switched to Decca (later MCA) where he struggled on for a couple of years, crooning 'adult' ballads like 'Fools Rush In' (1963) and "The Very Thought Of You" (1964). But it wasn't until the end of the sixties that Nelson rediscovered his direction and commercial success again. The night-club circuit had helped him survive the British invasion and psychedelia, and two albums he cut in 1967 showed the way forward. These were "Bright Lights And Country Music" and "Country Fever", which were among the earliest country rock albums.

In 1969 Nelson finally took the plunge, quite cabaret and began playing rock clubs with a new backing group, The Stone Canyon Band. Among its early members were Randy Meisner (later of Poco and the Eagles), Steve Love (who later joined Roger McGuinn) and steel guitarist Tom Brumley, a refugee from country star buck Owens' backing group, the Buckaroos. By now committed to the sound of country rock, Nelson refused to be limited by it, as the first hit of his revived career - a stripped-down version of Dylan's "She Belongs To Me' (1969) - demonstrated. A further indication of his returning confidence came with his first albums of the new decade: a live album, "Rick Nelson In Concert", and "Rick Sings Nelson" (1970) which provided another hit with "Easy To Be Free," a key expression of the honest individualism that was to give him his biggest hit of the Seventies, "Garden Party" (1972). "Rudy The Fifth," released in the previous year, had been Nelson's 27th album and saw him continuing in a country direction. "I always wanted to be Carl Perkins" was a later quote.

As his career had taken an upturn, Nelson had carefully kept himself apart from the growing band of rock'n'roll revivalists who in the uncertain years of the early seventies were trading on the memories and growing sense of nostalgia of their audience. Thus, Nelson's concerts and records contained only a smattering of oldies. But in 1971 he was invited to perform at a charity concert at Madison Square Garden and to his surprise was booed off the stage. In "Garden Party" he reflected his philosophy in the refrain: "If memories were all I sang, I'd rather drive a truck."

On the cover of the "Garden Party" album nelson was pictured nervously clutching a guitar, half-smiling into the camera in his low-key suit. He certainly looked different from his Fifties image. But the song, sung over a walking bass line that bore an uncanny resemblance to that of "Never Be Anyone Else But You," was performed with a directness and confidence that was startling. It seemed that having evaded his past for so long, Nelson had finally come to terms with it and succeeded in carving out a new career for himself. But, sadly, the Stone Canyon band quit Nelson soon afterwards and the self-produced albums that followed, on the MCA and Epic labels, saw him retreating into whimsical pleasantries, even though they contained songs by the likes of Baker Knight. The music of this period was only too forgettable, and once more Nelson's career seemed to be drifting aimlessly. After Presley's death, he briefly hooked up with Colonel Tom Parker as manager, but even the Colonel couldn't give his career its necessary sense of direction.

Despite Rick Nelson's consistent attempts to develop, his career reveals an innate sense of caution that he has only intermittently overcome. When, as on "I'm Walking." "Be Bop Baby," "Never Be Anyone Else But You" and "Garden Party," he overcame that caution the results were magical moments. In Ed Ward's phrase, Rick Nelson "had the soul of a rocker;" the tragedy was that his background was continually pulling him the other way. For Nelson, unlike, say, Gram Parsons, country rock was a compromise music - a music to soothe, not shatter and illuminate the harsh world he was protected from.

-Written in 1982 by PHIL HARDY, The History of Rock, part 16.