The Essentials: Jackie DeShannon’s Are You Ready for This?

When I moved this blog to WordPress in the summer of 2014, I decided to go with a tag line that would instantly identify what it was about: “…on music, memories & other stuff.” It sums up my intent rather well, I think. As I’ve mentioned before, however, I borrowed the “music and memories” portion from one of my favorite Jackie DeShannon songs, “Music and Memories,” which can be found on her oft-overlooked 1966 Are You Ready for This? LP.

As a whole, the album conjures the mid-’60s to a T, which is part of its charm, mixing elements of blue-eyed soul with Motown and the era’s mainstream pop. Think Dusty Springfield, the Supremes and Petula Clark rolled into one. The DeShannon-penned title track, for instance, would likely have been a smash hit if sung by Diana Ross and Co.:

And “Windows and Doors,” one of several Bacharach-David songs (and one of two tracks produced by Bacharach), has a melody that can’t be beat and a quaint ‘60s philosophical quotient: “True love is something you can’t buy in stores.”

In a sense, the album replicates her career to date, as she’d recorded in a variety of styles since signing with Liberty Records in 1960. As on Are You Ready for This?, some of those songs were self-penned, others not. It didn’t matter. Either/or, she invested her soul in them. Check out “To Be Myself,” one of the four songs on the album that she wrote:

These days, the Kentucky-born DeShannon is probably best known for her rendition of the Burt Bacharach-Hal David classic “What the World Needs Now” (1965) and her own “Put a Little Love in Your Heart” (1969). She also opened for the Beatles on their first U.S. tour in 1964, starred in a few movies… and wrote some memorable hits for others, including Marianne Faithfull’s “Come and Stay With Me” (which was also covered by Cher) and the classic Searchers tune “When You Walk Into a Room.” (If my snapshot summary piques your interest, check out Wikipedia’s much more thorough bio.)

The self-penned “Find Me Love,” which closes the original album, is wondrous and revealing, and blends love with music in the best way possible: “You’re just like the melody/That stays within my mind/Some you’ll take along with you/Some you’ll leave behind…”

Her vocals, at various points, are sweet, gritty and longing; and the songs are all top-notch. The album’s a true treasure from another era, in other words, and one no doubt lost in its time due to DeShannon’s gender. A true shame. It’s said that those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it, but I’d add this to that well-worn axiom: Those who don’t know music history are denied great sounds. This is one of those cases.

Give it a go on Apple Music, Spotify or, courtesy of YouTube, right here:

Here’s the original track list:

(A 2005 reissue, which I’ve embedded for as long as YouTube allows above, added eight bonus songs, mostly singles from the same time period, including the aforementioned “What the World Needs Now.”)