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| Ricky Nelson, 1959. |
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| Rick Nelson, late 1970's. |
I’ve been listening to a lot of Rick Nelson’s music lately. Rick
or “Ricky” Nelson was one of the most successful rock singers of the late
1950’s and early 1960’s. Sometimes unfairly dismissed as just a teen idol with
a pretty face, Nelson made many great rockabilly records and his continued
commitment to his music throughout his life proves that he was a real artist,
not just a dilettante. I first starting listening to Rick Nelson’s music when I
was in high school, around 1996 or 1997, so I was the right age for songs like
“Young Emotions,” “Lonesome Town,” and “Young World.” Rick wasn’t as dynamic
and exciting as Elvis Presley, but his voice had a pure sweetness that I’ve
always enjoyed listening to. Since high school I’ve periodically revisited Rick
Nelson’s music and I still enjoy listening to him. But what got me started on
my recent Rick Nelson kick was finding his 1972 album “Garden Party” used on CD
for $4.99. I thought to myself, “I really like Rick; I’m surprised I don’t have
this CD, I should get it.” Hearing the “Garden Party” album made me remember
how much I like Rick Nelson, and it made me revisit the Rick Nelson CD’s I
already owned. I decided to write this post as an appreciation and overview of
Rick Nelson’s career, and a discussion of some of my favorite songs of his.
Ricky Nelson was born into a show business family. His
father, Ozzie Nelson, was a successful bandleader during the 1930’s and 40’s,
and the singer in Ozzie’s band was Rick’s mother, Harriet. After Ozzie’s
recording career cooled down, he and Harriet performed frequently on the radio,
and eventually they starred in their own radio show, “The Adventures of Ozzie
and Harriet.” The radio show was a family sitcom, starring the family members
as themselves, with child actors portraying young Ricky and his older brother
David. When Ricky was 8 and David was 12 in 1948, they started performing on
the radio show as themselves. Ricky was a natural performer, playing the
smartass younger brother to David’s straight man. The radio show continued to
be popular, and Ozzie wanted to break into the new medium of television. Ozzie
negotiated a TV contract with ABC that gave him a huge amount of control over
the TV show. Ozzie wrote and directed nearly every episode of “The Adventures of
Ozzie and Harriet.” The TV show was a huge success, airing for 14 seasons, from
1952 until 1966. It is still the longest running non-animated sitcom in U.S.
television history. America watched Ricky Nelson grow up into Rick Nelson on
the show, as Rick was 12 when it began and 26 when it finally left the
airwaves. But a lot happened to Rick Nelson during those 14 years. Rick started
the show as the smart aleck younger brother, but he matured into a very
handsome young man who was a teen heartthrob even before he began singing.
Like most other teenagers of the time, Rick loved rock and
roll music. Unlike any other teenager of the time, he starred on a very popular
national TV show. When he was 16, Rick wanted to make a record, supposedly to
impress a girl. With Ozzie’s help, Rick landed a record deal, but not before
numerous labels had turned him down. When Rick’s first record came out in 1957,
“A Teenager’s Romance,” backed with a cover of the Fats Domino tune “I’m
Walkin,’” Rick had the unique opportunity of being able to plug his record on
his family’s TV show. So Rick singing his latest record quickly became a
standard feature of “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.” While this huge
exposure early on undoubtedly helped Rick in establishing his music career, there’s
no way he would have been as successful for as he long as he was if the only
thing selling his records was the TV show. A lot of people credit Rick’s
singing on “The Adventures” with helping to popularize rock and roll. Certainly
seeing clean-cut Rick sing must have reassured parents that not every rock and
roller was a greasy juvenile delinquent. And much of the credit for this must
go to Ozzie Nelson, who astutely saw that rock and roll was not much different
from the music his parents dismissed when he was a teenager himself. Rather than
complain about the new music, Ozzie astutely embraced it.
Both sides of Rick’s very first single entered the Top Ten,
with “A Teenager’s Romance” climbing to number 2, and “I’m Walkin’” peaking
just below it at number 4. Rick quickly proved that he was no one-hit wonder,
scoring Top Ten hits in quick succession with “Be-Bop Baby” and “Stood Up.”
Rick loved rockabilly and idolized Elvis Presley and Carl Perkins. As Rick was
forming a band of his own, he soon found a young guitarist who would play a
vital part in shaping his music’s sound. That guitarist was James Burton, who
would play lead guitar on nearly every record of Rick’s until 1968. When Elvis
Presley returned to performing live in 1969, he hired Burton as his lead
guitarist, and Burton played with Elvis until Presley’s death in 1977. Rick
wanted his records to have a real rockabilly sound, and Burton provided that
with searing solos on songs like “Believe What You Say” and “I Got a Feeling.” Rick
continued to have many hits in 1958 and 1959, notching 5 Top Ten singles in
1958 and 4 Top Ten singles in 1959. Rick was beginning to rival his idol Elvis
Presley as the most successful rock and roll singer. Ironically enough, the
vocal group The Jordanaires sang back-up on both Elvis’s records and Rick’s.
Elvis allowed the Jordanaires to sing on Rick’s records as long as they went
uncredited.
Rick’s career hit a slight bump in 1960, as none of his
singles that year made it to the Top Ten. But his first single of 1961 was one
of his best, “Travelin’ Man” backed with “Hello, Mary Lou.” Both sides made the
Top Ten, with “Travelin’ Man” going all the way to number 1. Rick scored 3 more
Top Ten hits in 1962, giving him a total of 30 Top 40 singles from 1957-1962,
more than anyone else during that time except for Elvis and Pat Boone. Rick changed
record labels in 1963, moving from Imperial to Decca, who signed him to an
unprecedented 20-year contract. After changing labels, Rick scored just one
more Top Ten hit during the 1960’s, “For You,” which peaked at number 6 in
February, 1964, just at the exact moment The Beatles were starting to dominate
the U.S. charts.
Like nearly every other pre-Beatles rock singer, Rick’s
career was severely damaged by the British Invasion. While the times they were
a-changin,’ everything on “Ozzie and Harriet” was still pretty much the same. By
1966, when “Ozzie and Harriet” finally went off the air, Rick’s singles had
stopped charting, as did his albums. It seems as though Rick wasn’t getting
great material written for him on Decca, as most of his Decca hits were covers
of old songs like “Fools Rush In,” “For You,” and “The Very Thought of You.”
Since Rick didn’t write songs himself, he was at a disadvantage when The
Beatles came along, as it became the norm for rock singers to write their own
material. But he eventually started writing quite prolifically in the late
1960’s, even recording an entire album of his own songs, 1970’s “Rick Sings
Nelson.”
As his career floundered, Rick seemed unsure of what
direction to take with his music. He recorded two country-flavored albums in
1966 and 1967, “Bright Lights and Country Music” and “Country Fever,” but then
turned more towards folk on his next two albums. Rick had a very versatile
voice, and his voice’s pure tone made it easy for him to alternate between
singing standards, ballads, pop, rock, rockabilly, folk, and country. In 1969
Rick finally figured out the direction he wanted to move in. He started a new
band and he fully embraced the nascent “country rock” movement. Rick called his
new group “The Stone Canyon Band.” Originally, Rick wanted to fully blend into
the group and have their records released under the name “Stone Canyon,” with
no mention of his name. Decca Records strongly objected to Rick’s idea, forcing
him to modify the billing to “Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band.” Rick was obviously
anxious to start a new chapter in his career and attempt to jettison some of
the baggage that came with being “Ricky Nelson,” the All-American boy next
door.
Rick’s first album with the Stone Canyon Band was 1969’s “In
Concert,” which was recorded live at the Troubadour folk club in L.A. Rick’s
opening act was a young comedian named Steve Martin. “In Concert” blended
Rick’s original songs with songs from contemporary folk singer/songwriters like
Tim Hardin, Eric Andersen, and Bob Dylan. “In Concert” proved to be an
excellent album, showing that Rick had updated his sound and image, and it
became his first album to hit the charts since 1964. Just before “In Concert”
was recorded in the fall of the 1969, Rick’s mellow country rock cover of Bob
Dylan’s “She Belongs to Me” became his first Top 40 hit since 1964. It seemed
like there might be a new audience for Rick’s new sound. But in October of
1971, when Rick was playing as part of an oldies revue at Madison Square
Garden, he discovered that some people didn’t want him to change. The story
surrounding that performance at Madison Square Garden is that all of the
performers were supposed to look and sound exactly like they did in the late
1950’s and early 1960’s. Rick didn’t look and sound exactly the same, as he now
sported shoulder-length hair, long sideburns, and hippie-like clothes. And while
he remained true to the spirit of his old recordings, they inevitably sounded a
little different with the pedal steel guitar of the Stone Canyon Band. Near the
end of his set Rick sat down at the piano and announced that they were going to
play “one of the greatest rock and roll songs ever written,” The Rolling
Stones’ “Honky Tonk Women.” A chorus of boos ensued as Rick sang the song. The
booing got louder, and at the end of the song Rick quickly rushed into
“Travelin’ Man” and left the stage. Rick assumed that people had booed him
because he looked different than he used to and his music sounded different
than it used to. And he had perhaps broken the spell of the nostalgia show by
introducing a more contemporary song as “one of the greatest rock and roll
songs ever written.” However, other sources have since said that the real
reason there was booing during Rick’s set had nothing to do with his music at
all. Some sources say that there was a fight going on in one section of the
audience, and the crowd was booing the people who were fighting, not Rick.
Whatever really happened that night, the point is that Rick thought that people
were booing him and his music, which led him to write his masterpiece, “Garden
Party.”
“Garden Party” recounts the story of the Madison Square
Garden concert, and Rick’s annoyance at the audience’s inability to accept his
new music and new image. In the chorus of “Garden Party” Rick sings,
“But it’s all right now
I learned my lesson well
You see, you can’t please everyone
So you got to please yourself”
“Garden Party” is a forceful statement for the autonomy of
the musical artist, supporting the idea that an artist must be free to make art
that pleases them, regardless of what the masses might think. This was pretty heavy
stuff coming from a supposedly lightweight former teen idol. In perhaps the
most famous verse of “Garden Party” Rick sings,
“If you got to play at garden parties
I wish you a lot of luck
But if memories were all I sang
I’d rather drive a truck”
Ironically enough, despite of its stance against pleasing
the masses, “Garden Party” went on to become a huge hit single. It was Rick’s
last Top Ten single, peaking at number 6 in the fall of 1972. The success of
the single pushed the “Garden Party” album into the Top Forty. But Rick’s
commercial comeback was brief, as his next album, 1974’s “Windfall,” just
barely scraped into the Top 200 at #190, and spawned no hit singles. The next
year Decca, which had now become MCA, terminated Rick’s 20-year contract, which
still had 8 years to run.
Rick signed with Epic Records, and he had a very frustrating
tenure there, recording enough material for three albums, but seeing just one
issued during his lifetime. After he left Epic, Rick signed with Capitol
Records. Rick would release just one album on Capitol, 1981’s “Playing to Win.”
In the liner notes for the CD reissue of “Playing to Win,” the story is
recounted that Paul McCartney had offered to produce an album for Rick in the
late 1970’s. Paul had the idea of writing some songs with Rick and recording at
Sun Studios in Memphis. But when Rick and his management brought the idea to
Capitol, executives were very cool on it, because Paul had just left Capitol to
sign with Columbia Records. So Rick never recorded with Paul, which is a shame.
No matter what the quality of music would have been, just the association with
McCartney would have greatly helped Rick’s career and might have led to a
full-fledged comeback. But as it was, “Playing to Win” made it to #153 on the
Top 200. Not a great showing, by any means, but it did provide Rick with a
historic achievement. Rick became the only rock and roll artist to land albums
of all new material on the Billboard charts in the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s, and
80’s. That’s no small achievement, and it shows that he was still trying to do
new things with his music. Of course, you can add some asterisks to this
record, as there were artists like Frank Sinatra who were very successful on
the album charts in all of those decades, but of course Frank doesn’t count as
a rock and roll singer. And had Elvis Presley lived a little longer, he surely
would have been able to hit the charts during the 1980’s, assuming that he was
still recording new material. But Rick’s achievement was a sign of his
longevity and his commitment to his music.
Capitol Records dropped Rick after the lackluster performance
of “Playing to Win.” Rick was then in the middle of a very expensive divorce
from his wife Kris Harmon; and he was forced to tour constantly in order to
make money. Rick was still playing all of his old hits, and singing them with
as much passion as he had when he first recorded them nearly thirty years
before. In 1985 Rick had signed with Curb Records, and by the end of the year
he was about halfway through making a new album. Rick was touring with Fats
Domino in the fall of 1985, and Rick’s performance on August 22, 1985 was
recorded for TV. That performance shows Rick singing many of his greatest hits.
His voice still sounded good, he was still impossibly handsome at 45, and it’s
clear that he still loved singing and performing these songs that had made him
famous. On December 31, 1985, Rick Nelson was flying to Dallas for a New Year’s
Eve concert when the plane carrying him and his band crashed. The two pilots
survived the crash, but everyone else on board was killed. Rick Nelson was only
45 years old.
Rick Nelson was a truly talented singer, songwriter, and
performer who often gets overlooked in the history of rock and roll. But those
of us who are fans of Rick Nelson’s know that his music was something special. If
you think Rick Nelson was just another pretty boy teen idol, you’re wrong. He
was much more than that. Rick Nelson stayed true to his rockabilly roots and did
what he wanted to do. He did his best to stay true to his artistic vision. In
the late 1970’s, he was offered a huge contract to perform in Las Vegas, but he
turned it down because that wasn’t who he was as an artist. Rick didn’t want to
just smile, wear a tuxedo, and sing his greatest hits with an orchestra. When
he did play Vegas in 1978, he did so with his 5 piece rock band wearing blue
jeans, and not an orchestra or dancing girl in sight. The more I’ve read and learned
about Rick Nelson, the more impressed I am with his integrity. He was a great
artist who died much too soon. But fortunately he left us with a lot of great
records. The success he had on the pop singles charts is staggering, as he
charted 53 Top 100 singles between 1957 and 1973, of those 53 songs, 35 made the
Top 40, and 19 made the Top Ten, which gave Rick more Top Ten singles than any
other artist of his generation except for Elvis Presley. Here are my Top Ten
Rick Nelson songs, in chronological order:
Believe What You Say (1958)-Rick’s first single with James
Burton on lead guitar, this is a great rockabilly song that shows how hard Rick
could rock. It became a staple of his live shows, and he did a great
re-recording of it on “Playing to Win.”
Lonesome Town (1958)-This haunting song shows how effective
Rick was at singing ballads. It features just Rick, a guitar, and The
Jordanaires singing backup.
It’s Late (1959)-In which Rick and his date lose track of
time and end up staying out all night. Uh oh! It’s a fun song, a typical teen
song of the time. Features a tasty James Burton guitar solo.
Sweeter Than You (1959)-Another ballad that highlights Rick’s
sweet, intimate voice. Listen to this song and you can see why girls went nuts
over him.
Travelin’ Man (1961)-One of Rick’s best-known songs, this
song features him as a Lothario with, literally, a girl in every port. It’s a
supremely catchy song, with great backing vocals from The Jordanaires.
Hello, Mary Lou (1961)-The B-side to “Travelin’ Man,” but just
as good a song. It opens with a distinctive drum pattern and is an early hint
of the country influence in Rick’s music.
Teenage Idol (1962)-Rick originally didn’t want to sing this
song, as he feared its lyrics would make him sound self-pitying. And sure, it’s
a song about how hard it is to be a teenage idol, and how he has no time to
find the right girl, “cause I’m just passing through.” But even though it doesn’t
accurately reflect Rick’s life at the time, as he was only touring during
summer breaks from filming “Ozzie and Harriet,” it’s still an interesting song
about being a famous musician recorded by a famous musician at the peak of his
fame.
Fools Rush In (1963)-A great rock and roll rearrangement of
this standard, featuring a terrific vocal from Rick, and a great solo from
James Burton. When Elvis recorded the song in 1971, he copied Rick’s arrangement,
and James Burton plays the same solo on both records.
Easy to be Free (1970)-One of the best songs that Rick ever
wrote, it’s a lovely country rock song with a great melody and lyrics about self-discovery
and finding yourself.
Garden Party (1972)-Rick’s statement of artistic freedom and
autonomy, delivered with a loping beat and great harmonies. Fittingly, it
became his last big hit single. There are, of course, many other great and
wonderful Rick Nelson songs, but these ten songs are a good place to start a
journey into Rick’s music.
