Dorsey Burnette

Dorsey Burnette – The Complete Reprise And Motown Recordings

Bear Family Records BCD17733
CD 1  – Back To Nature – Rolling Restless Stones – The Boys Kept Hanging Around – Castle In The Sky – Darling Jane – I’m A Waitin’ For Ya, Baby – It Don’t Take Much – Hey Sue – Invisible Chains – Pebbles – Sixteen Violins – The Greenside Of The Mountain – One Mornin’ – Circle Rock – House With A Tin Roof Top – One Of The Lonely – Where’s The Girl – Four For Texas – Foolish Pride – Little Acorn – Cold As Usual – Jimmy Brown – Everybody’s Angel – Long Long Time Ago – Ever Since The World Began
CD 2  – Magic Of Love – It Coul’ve Been Different – My Refugee – Little By Little – Go Between – Light The Fuse – Gotta Travel On – Alligator Davey – Don’t Believe – Bluer Than Blue – Buckeye Road – Lonely Room 21 – Why Break My Heart (Just To Run Around) – Lipstick, Tickle Toes, Huggy Bear, Kiss Face Baby – Conscience, I’m Guilty – They’re Only Words – Love Me Forever – There Comes A Time (Baby I Didn’t) – I Know, I Know – Honey Come Back

This limited double CD takes things where Great Shakin Fever (Bear Family 15545) left them and continues to explore Dorsey Burnette’s long journey through an impressive long string of labels (Imperial, Lama, Reprise, Capitol, Dot, Liberty, Hickory, Smash and Mel-o-dy, a Motown subsidiary).

CD1 opens with the single Dorsey recorded for Lama in 1962. Back To Nature is a good and engaging tune with harmonica and a female vocal chorus (that could be dispensable but not enough to waste the song.) The flip, Rolling Restless Stone, is even better: a beautiful song in the style of Marty Robbins’ Bend of the River on which Burnette is perfectly at ease.
After that, Burnette moved to Reprise Records, for a longer tenure, often with Joe Osborne on bass, a regular side man with Ricky Nelson, and later a member of the Wreckin’ Crew.
The debut single for his new label features the quite corny The Boys Kept Hanging Around, backed by the far better and soulful ballad Castle In the Sky penned by Don Covay and John Berry.
The following single featured the superb and dramatic Darling Jane, another Marty Robbins-tinged tune, with sparse instrumentation and beautiful haunting backing vocals. I’m Waiting For Ya Baby is a good pop song showing that the Ricky Nelson collaboration had left its mark, although the backing vocals are a bit annoying.

In March 1963, Dorsey Burnette reunited with Johnny for one single. It Don’t Take Much has a slight Save The Last Dance feel, but once again is marred by the omnipresent backing vocals. Better is Hey Sue, a country-tinged tune sung in harmony by the two brothers with dobro.
Jack Nitzsche, famous for work with Phil Spector and many others, arranged the following three tracks. Both Invisible Chains and Pebbles should have been a hit for Dorsey, like Johnny had one with You’re Sixteen. Dorsey’s deep and warm voice is really beautiful in these two songs, and the arrangement works with the singer and not against him, which is not the case for Sixteen Violins, a weird country rock. The song could work, but it’s over-orchestrated (well, sixteen violins, count them, they’re all here).
With Green Side Of the Mountain, an up-tempo hillbilly song with banjo, Dorsey abandons his crooner side to reconnect, at least in part, with the frenzy of the Rock’n’roll Trio. The same goes for One Mornin’.
Circle Rock and House With A Tin Roof Top are the two older songs on this compilation dating from 1959. The former is a good soft Rock and the latter is a ballad with piano that would have suited Ricky Nelson. Both sound more like demos than final recordings.
The June/July 1963 session sees the return of Jack Nitzsche. One Of the Loney is really emphatic with full orchestra (strings and horns) complete with drum rolls, but once again, Dorsey’s voice sells the thing. Where’s the Girl, penned by Leiber and Stoller, adds a touch of soul, with subtle string arrangements and a superb tremolo guitar solo by Glen Campbell.
The galloping Four For Texas was written for the Western of the same name, directed by Robert Aldrich, and featuring Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. It has the exuberance of the Western songs of that era (think Dimitri Tiomkin). The song was backed with Foolish Pride, a pop-rocker.

By 1964, Dorsey Burnette moved to Motown and his subsidiary label Mel-O-Dy.
Little Acorn, an answer to Tall Oak R-Tree, is Burnette’s first single for his new label. The singer is in fine form, and the music ain’t that bad, but Burnette can’t turn lead into gold, and the lyrics are way too stupid. Cold As Usual is way better. With a sparse accompaniment reminiscent of Johnny Cash, Dorsey delivers a dark and sad tale of poverty (“I Can’t Afford to Die”).
Jimmy Brown is even more anchored in the Cash mold, musically (with a distinct boom-chick-boom) and vocally, sounding almost like an impersonator. Fortunately, Burnette returns to his own voice for Everybody’s Angel, an uptempo and melodic country-pop song. And despite its kinda risqué lyrics, it could have been a hit for Ricky Nelson. Long Long Time Ago is a solid country ballad with a melodramatic feel and shows that the Cash shadows still floats over these sessions. The song was backed with Ever Since The World Began, another excellent country pop with twangy guitar.

This first CD gathers all the released sides Dorsey Burnette recorded for Reprise and Motown (and a couple more). But there’s more! Bear Family included a second CD with all the unissued tracks recorded for Motown that, for some obscure reasons, never saw the light of the day.

For some of them, it’s understandable whether the songs are average, like Little By Little (a clean pop rocker), Lonely Room 21 (another song on which the influence of Cash is too present), or too weird, like It Could Have Been Different. Some are only slightly interesting, like Bluer than Blue, which is only worth it for its James Burton-influenced guitar part.
Besides that, many of them would have deserved to be released.
There’s, of course, a solid dose of beautiful ballads with superb crooning, like My Refugee, Go Between, or Why Break My Heart, to name but three. Dorsey also recorded some solid country rockers like Light The Fuse and Gotta Travel On. Alligator Davey with organ is reminiscent of Rusty and Doug Louisiana Man.
But the most surprising and the best tunes are the three he recorded embracing the genre of his new label. Love Me Forever and I Know I Know are filled with juicy horns, and There Comes A Time features an organ and a superb funky bass line. These are, with Magic Of Love, which is on par with Ben E King’s Spanish Harlem, the best tunes of this batch of unreleased songs that counts many hidden gems.