Search - Jimmy Donley :: The Shape You Left Me In

Jimmy Donley
The Shape You Left Me In
Genre: Pop

Track Listings (25) - Disc #1
1. Come Along
2. Child Love
3. Kickin' My Hound Around
4. Baby How Long
5. Please Baby Come Home
6. Born To Be A Loser
7. Radio, Jukebox, And T.V. (Version 1)
8. I'm Alone
9. The Shape You Left Me In
10. Arleeta
11. What Must I Do
12. Give Me My Freedom
13. Now I Know
14. I Can't Love You Like You Want Me To Do
15. Our Love
16. I've Been There
17. My Baby's Gone
18. I Gotta Go
19. South of the Border
20. The Trail of the Lonesome Pine
21. Child Love
22. Arleeta
23. Radio, Jukebox, And T.V. (Version 2)
24. I'm Alone [Studio Workshop - run throughs & false starts]
25. I'm Alone [Studio Workshop - full version]

CD Details

All Artists: Jimmy Donley
Title: The Shape You Left Me In
Members Wishing: 2
Total Copies: 0
Label: Bear Family
Release Date: 2/23/2010
Album Type: Import
Genre: Pop
Style: Oldies
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
Other Editions: Shape You Left Me in
UPC: 4000127165343

Synopsis

Product Description

Jimmy Donley has become a cult figure, his fame spreading well beyond the boundaries of Louisiana swamp pop and rockabilly. A prolific songwriter - compared by some to Hank Williams - Donley never enjoyed success with his own recordings. Much of his legacy rests on the unlikely musical and personal bond he forged with Fats Domino, who recorded more than half a dozen of his songs. Music aside, the details of Jimmy Donley's tragic life have made him one of the most notorious figures of his era. He is remembered today for the extreme and incessant violence in his life. Prior to his suicide in 1963, Donley's aggression was freely directed at his numerous wives, girlfriends, as well as casual patrons in the Gulf Coast bars where he performed. ''You didn't want to come near him when he was drinking,'' recalls Donley's sister. The trouble was, Jimmy Donley drank nearly all the time.Donley's music has never been reissued with the care and attention to detail it deserves. Bear Family remedies all that with the release of this CD, featuring an extensive bio based on new interview material by Hank Davis, a generous collection of Donley's classic sides for Decca Nashville, as well as a special glimpse at the behind-the-scenes events at one of Donley's recording sessions. It's all here: every title Donley recorded between 1957 and 1960, including multiple takes and previously unissued material. This set offers the best available look into the life and music of one of the Deep South's legendary figures.

CD Reviews

Talented Tortured and Tormented Swamp Pop

Jim Linderman | USA | 05/15/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Prostitutes, knives, sexual abuse, mental illness, suicide, alcoholism, attempted murder, wife-beating and an ill-fated decision to sell the rights to his songs to the crooked preacher Charles Jessup all add up to one damn good reason to BUY A CD instead of downloading some songs.

I swear, there is no way a tiny digital impulse which costs 99 cents and hurts your ears because the sound is so bad can even BEGIN to compare with a real CD and a real BOOK of liner notes, and the Jimmy Donley CD from the incredible Bear Records label in Germany is not the only reason, but it is a good one.

I can't even do justice to the disc, the liner notes, or the simply hard to believe story which unfolds as you listen. Suffice to say if you still own a CD player, this belongs. I've been a big fan of Swamp Pop for a long time, it is one of the last vestiges of a music junkie, and it has been on my mind even more since British Petroleum broke the Gulf with misguided greed and a rush to profit.

Swamp Pop comes from the same place now being gobbed with oil, and that the area just to the south of New Orleans has made a musical contribution equal to their cooking should not escape anyone. Like Bobby Charles, who I have also profiled here, Donley got some songs into the hands of Fats Domino, yet another reason to be glad to be alive...and if you know that beat and rhythm, you can begin to understand swamp pop. This would be a good CD for you to start with, and after you have read the simply incredible 40 page story included with the disc, if you don't have second thoughts about all that money you're electronically transferring directly to Apple...then I give up.

FIVE CAJUN STARS *****

Jim Linderman Dull Tool Dim Bulb"