Description
Release Date: 2010
Label: Bear Family Records
Track List
1 Come Along
2 Child Love
3 Kickin’ My Hound Around
4 Baby How Long
5 Please Baby Come Home
6 Born To Be A Loser
7 Radio, Jukebox, And T.V.
8 !’m Alone
9 The Shape You Left Me In
10 Arleeta
11 What Must I Do
12 Give Me My Freedom
13 Now I Know
14 I Can’t Love You Like You Want Me To Do
15 Our Love
16 I’ve Been There
17 My Baby’s Gone
18 I Gotta Go
19 South Of The Border
20 The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine
21 Child Love
22 Arleeta
23 Radio, Jukebox And T.V.
24 I’m Alone [Studio Workshop]
25 I’m Alone [Studio Workshop]
Notes
Jimmy Donley’s life was one long argument with the world, a continual string of fights, dangerous marriages, and pure, self-generated trouble that never abated until his suicide in 1963 at the age of 34. Donley had an impressive talent for singing and writing songs, and his legacy of swampy rockabilly party tunes and heartbreaking, lonely love ballads is all the more amazing for being generated from the gates of his own personal hell. This set from Bear Family Records collects the heart of Donley’s work with Decca Records between 1957 and 1961, the period when Donley came nearest to achieving his dream of being a star. He never came close to being a household name, though, but it isn’t because his recordings weren’t good. These tracks were produced in Nashville by the legendary Owen Bradley and featured the best session musicians around, including saxophonist Boots Randolph and guitarist Hank Garland, and were sweetened by orchestrations and the seemingly ever-present Anita Kerr Singers (who add joyous depth to some songs but also add little or nothing but listener irritation to others). But everything hinged on Donley’s singing and swagger anyway, and he did both well, although his Cajun-like diction made some songs lyrically indecipherable. Donley simply had that elusive thing when he sang, a feeling that all the loneliness in the world was in his heart — the words were almost secondary. Songs like his signature “The Shape You Left Me,” the gorgeous ballad “What Must I Do,” and the ultimately very autobiographical “Born to Be a Loser” are revelatory for their depth of passion, confusion, and sadness, and even a hillbilly Saturday night stomper like “Kickin’ My Hound Around” seems to hint at deeper truths, whether or not Donley ever actually found anything but anger in his heart. Donley went on to record for Johnny Vincent’s Ace Records and Huey Meaux’s Tear Drop Records after Decca finally gave up on him in 1961, but his catalog with the label — although there aren’t a lot of recordings — is a strong one. Fighting the world and everyone in it is one thing — these wonderful tracks suggest it could have been different.
