It's true that
Rick's Rarities is a vault-scraping exercise. The 23 tracks are about evenly divided between previously unreleased material on the one hand, and various items from non-LP singles and obscure soundtrack and compilation albums that haven't been on CD before on the other. It's not bad, though, even if it's not on the level of the best material he did for Decca, and certainly not on the level of his best early stuff on Imperial in the late '50s and early '60s. All but one of the songs was cut between 1964 and 1969, and as much as the compilation CDs that actually showcase the best of
Rick Nelson's Decca output, they reflect his drift from mild rockabilly-pop to early country-rock. Of the more interesting mid-'60s earliest selections here,
Sonny Curtis' "I've Been Lookin'" is a fair rockabilly-tinged rocker; "I Need You" a nearly gorgeous orchestrated ballad that didn't see release at the time; the
Nelson-penned "Freedom and Liberty" an ultra-tentative stab at social consciousness; and "Your Kind of Lovin'" an obscure song by Jill Jones and Annette Tucker, who'd go on to write songs recorded by
the Electric Prunes. But much of the material is unmemorably average, and sometimes lethargic, even if
Nelson and his backup musicians deliver reasonably committed performances. Oddest are four string-laden
Bacharach-
David songs from the soundtrack LP to the forgotten 1966 television special On the Flip Side, one ("Try to See It My Way") sung with
Joanie Sommers.
Nelson sounds far more comfortable with the laid-back country-rock on the late-'60s sides, which include covers of
Tim Hardin's "The Lady Came from Baltimore" and
Randy Newman's "I Think It's Going to Rain Today," as well as a nice 1967
Nelson-authored single, "I'm Called Lonely." The packaging on this CD is perhaps more inspired than the music, the 28-page booklet including not just thorough track-by-track details on these Decca-era rarities, but also excerpts of pieces in which several of
Nelson's associates talk about their work with the singer. ~ Richie Unterberger