Jackie DeShannon: 1961-2017:Covered | Albums That Should Exist

 Speaking of interesting post from Paul at ATSE

Covered: Jackie DeShannon: 1961-2017

Paul says: Here's another entry in my Covered series highlighting the careers of great songwriters. This time, it's Jackie DeShannon.

DeShannon is more famous as a performer than a songwriter. But she's in a rather strange position, because she had some big hits as a performer that she didn't write, especially "What the World Needs Now Is Love," and some big hits as a songwriter for other musical acts, especially "When You Walk in the Room" and "Betty Davis Eyes." The one big hit she both wrote and had the hit performance was "Put a Little Love in Your Heart."

DeShannon was born in rural Kentucky to parents who were farmers but also very musically inclined. So her music career began remarkably early. She was singing songs on local radio stations by the time she was six years old, and hosting her own radio show and making occasional local TV appearances by the time she was eleven! She signed her first record contract at the age of 16, and began putting out singles, but without much success at first. 

At the time, successful female songwriters were very few and far between. But in 1960 she had enough success to get connected to another female songwriter, Sharon Sheeley. Together, they co-wrote DeShannon's first hit song, "Dum Dum" by Brenda Lee. They also wrote some other hit songs over the next couple of years, like "Heart in Hand" and "Breakaway."

In 1963, she co-wrote the song "Needles and Pins" with Jack Nitzsche and Sonny Bono. She didn't get songwriting credit on it, but she claims she was a full participant in its creation. I believe her. It was common for aspiring musicians to get screwed out of songwriting credits in those days (and probably still today), and I'll bet that went double for women. At any rate, her version of the song was the first one released. It barely made the U.S. singles charts, but went all the way to Number One in Canada. Instead, the Searchers had a Number One hit with it some months later. That suggested there was a problem with her record company, not with her version. Later in 1963, she wrote "When You Walk in the Room" by herself. Again, her version went nowhere and the Searchers had a bit hit with it.

In 1965, she finally had a big hit as a performer, with "What the World Needs Now Is Love," written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. From that point on, she almost had two music careers at once. She put out many albums and singles, often with her singing cover songs. At the same time though, she wrote successful songs for other musical acts that she usually never released herself. Examples would be "Come and Stay with Me," a hit she wrote for Marianne Faithfull, and "Don't Doubt Yourself, Babe," which she wrote for the Byrds. 

She wrote hundreds of songs in many musical genres, and made professional sounding demos of them to give to other musicians. Decades later, several albums of these demos have been released. I think if she would have focused on putting on these songs she wrote herself, she would have had a much more successful performing career. It seems to me though that her record company was more interested in her songwriting, so they didn't encourage that.

In 1969, she had another huge hit with "Put a Little Love in Your Heart," which she co-wrote. It reached the Top Five in the U.S. singles chart. After that, musical trends were changing. There was much more of a focus on singers writing their own songs. For instance, Carole King made the transition from writing hits for others to performing her own hit songs. DeShannon made a similar transition, putting out many albums in the 1970s which mostly consisted of her own songs. Again though, in my opinion, her record companies badly bungled her career. Archival releases decades later show dozens of really good songs she wrote and recorded that weren't released at the time. 

Her performing career slowly wound down. In 1978, she stopped putting out albums. She would only release two more much later, in 2000 and 2011. She also never really toured much. She probably didn't need to, with all the money she made from songwriting. In 1974, one of her albums contained a song she co-wrote, "Betty Davis Eyes." It didn't get any attention at the time, and wasn't released as a single. But in 1981, Kim Carnes had a massive hit with it. It went to Number One in the U.S., and was the best selling song of the year.

For this album, I've concentrated entirely on cover versions, with not even a single song performed by DeShannon. I've already posted a couple of albums by her at this blog, and I'll probably post more in the future, so this isn't the place for more of that. Most of these are the original versions, often the hit versions. But I made some exceptions, especially when I had to choose versions other than the DeShannon ones, for instance with "Put a Little Love in Your Heart." 

Here's her Wikipedia page if you want to know more:

Jackie DeShannon - Wikipedia 

An interesting fact I just saw on that page is that the Led Zeppelin song "Tangerine" was actually written by Jimmy Page about DeShannon. The two of them dated around 1965 when Page was a session guitarist. 

This album is 49 minutes long.  

01 Dum Dum (Brenda Lee)
02 Woe Is Me (Helen Shapiro)
03 Heart in Hand (Brenda Lee)
04 I Shook the World (Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans)
05 Needles and Pins (Searchers)
06 Breakaway (Irma Thomas)
07 When You Walk in the Room (Searchers)
08 Come and Stay with Me (Marianne Faithfull)
09 Don't Doubt Yourself, Babe (Byrds)
10 With You in Mind (Marianne Faithfull)
11 Put a Little Love in Your Heart (Dorothy Morrison)
12 Bad Water (Doris Duke)
13 Boat to Sail (Carpenters)
14 Santa Fe (Van Morrison)
15 Bette Davis Eyes (Kim Carnes)
16 Splendor in the Grass (Ladybug Transistor)
17 He Did It (Samantha Fish)