Teen Idol Trips Out

Rick Nelson, as previously noted here, was one cool cat, a child radio and TV star who became a teen pop and movie idol before developing a career as a country rock musician of impeccable taste. In the twilight days of his heartthrob years, with Dylan and the Beatles ushering in a new era, he realised he had to change to survive. As so many did, he experimented with a soft psychedelia. But at the same time he made a couple of full-tilt Bakersfield country music albums [hunt for them here - Ed.]. This was a subtle and super-smart move, and I can't offhand think of another artist who tried two radically different styles virtually simultaneously.

Being the thorough professional that he was, he didn't just sprinkle some instant sitar powder over a rock n' roll track and snap on a headband for a photoshoot, he made two albums in the strange and contradictory mode of psych-pop, at once experimental and formulaic. Go on over to AllMusic to read the standard critical response to these albums - a smug smirk of contempt. That's just wrong - critics can be so pleased with their own opinions that they prefer listening to their own keystrokes than the music.

On both these albums, Nelson showed his class covering songs by Hoagy Carmichael, John Sebastian, Tim Hardin, Harry Nilsson, Richie Havens, Paul Simon, and Randy Newman. In '67/'68, this showed a real hip awareness of what was happening around him. He also - as was required - tried his hand at his own material, although he knew his limitations at that time and kept it to a minimum. Jimmy Haskell, Jack Nitzsche and Bruce Botnick were part of the team, as were James Burton and John Boylan, whose Appletree Theatre album (made with his brother Terry) remains a beautiful classic of the genre.

Ultimately, country won over Crayola psych, and his career, although never reaching the heights of his teen idol years, continued steadily and respectably. If these albums can be seen as failures, they're very honorable ones, created without the slightest taint of cynicism. The genre was never built to last, and Rick gave it his best shot, from the heart - he was always incapable of giving less.