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All-New Studio Recordings Visit Jackie DeShannon's Website 1. Steal The Thunder 2. Wing Ryder 3. Somewhere In America 4. Any Heart 5. Song For Sandra Jeanne (Rites Of Passage) 6. You Know Me 7. Just How Right You Are 8. There Goes The One 9. Vanished In Time 10. Keeper Of The Dream 11. Raze 12. Red Montana Sky 13. Here On 14. Trader Produced by: Brian Levi and Jackie DeShannon. Personnel: Jackie DeShannon (vocals); Glenn Rottman, Richard Bakalyan (acoustic & electric guitars); Tony TerBorg(keyboards); Steve Porcaro (guest keyboards on Trader); Paulo Gustavo (bass); Matt Forsyth (drums). Special Thanks to the following musicians: Josh Souder (saxophone); Billy Moore, Eddie Drayton (percussion); Erin Strichlan (background vocals); Kenny Blackwell (mandolin). Incudes liner notes by David Wild. What the world needs now is more albums like You Know Me. When a popular artist as significant as Jackie DeShannon returns to the recording world after a long absence, the temptation is to simply to celebrate the good news and declare “She’s back!” In truth, there should be much rejoicing prompted by the release You Know Me –- DeShannon’s first new album in a decade or two and, to these ears, her strongest effort ever. Yet the Jackie DeShannon who’s come back to us at the start of the Twenty-First Century offers such an uncompromised and deeply personal expression of herself that she seems in essence a new artist. This is the sound of someone we’ve long loved yet somehow never completely known before because she never let us quite this close. Now we all have the pleasure of getting to know the former Sharon Lee Myers of Hazel, Kentucky by heart since You Know Me is undeniably a labor of love. In our current age of fly-by-night boy band madness and junior diva fashion shows, there may be many with just a cursory knowledge of who DeShannon is and what she’s meant to our musical culture. Is she the pioneering woman in rock who boldly went where none had gone before? Is she pop goddess who scaled the heights of chart success with smashes like “What The World Needs Now” and “Put A Little Love In Your Heart.” Is she the pioneering female songwriter who penned hits from Brenda Lee’s “Dum Dum” to Kim Carnes “Bette Davis Eyes,” and whose material have been covered by singers from Mahalia Jackson to Cher? Is she the defining folk-rocker who wrote the classic “When You Walk In The Room” and brought the world “Needles and Pins” well before the Searchers? Is she the charismatic live performer who shared concert bills with everyone from the Beatles to Neil Diamond to Van Morrison? Is she versatile recording artist who collaborated with Jimmy Page well before Robert Plant? Is she the hippie high priestess who brought us the classic 1968 El Lay album Laurel Canyon? Is she the sexy babe who appeared in movies like C’mon, Let’s Live A Little and Surf Party (in a cast with Kim Carnes) and inspired many young men of a certain age -- okay me –- to have some of their first fantasies of biblical knowledge? Jackie DeShannon is, of course, all of the above. And as You Know Me so vividly demonstrates, she’s so much more too. In his Lyrical Ballads (1800), William Wordworth wrote that “Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge.” In the past, DeShannon has written some knowing lyrical ballads of her own and just about every other sort of popular song too. And though this lifelong lover of pure pop finds a song like DeShannon’s classic “When You Walk in the Room” to be high art, You Know Me represents a major, poetic leap in DeShannon’s work. What we have here is an utter non-failure to communicate. You Know Me is a portrait of the woman as a mature artist, unrestrained by any sort of industry pandering. The expected craft is evident here, as is an intriguing political consciousness and the sort of unforced intimacy that could only come from someone who’s lived a little. There’s nothing but highlights here –- though the immediate stunners include the title track, the instantly infectious “There Goes The One,” “Any Heart,” and “Song For Sandra Jeanne (Rites of Passage),” and “Here On,” a spiritually uplifting reggae anthem worthy of Bob Marley himself. “One thing that seems to be certain/We’re just part of a dying breed,” DeShannon writes and sings on the exquisite “Vanished In Time,” another gem that recalls the autumnal greatness of Bob Dylan’s “Not Dark Yet.” Here’s hoping this particular breed lives on forever. Yes, You Know Me is an album by a woman with an illustrious past, but the most exciting part is that DeShannon’s still sounds grounded in what happens from “Here On.” Listen closely to You Know Me and what you’ll here is considerably more than an impressive return to form. It’s almost as if for all these years there have been many Jackie DeShannons, and now there is only one -- fully-realized and fantastic. This is a chance to get to know one of music’s greats in a more profound and soulful way. And something like that can’t help but put a little love in your heart. David Wild Contributing Editor, Rolling Stone |
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