by William Ruhlmann
Eight of Ricky Nelson's first nine singles hit the Top Ten (sometimes even the B-sides made the Top Ten) and seven went gold. The string was broken in the fall of 1959, and though &I Wanna Be Loved,& his tenth single, and &Young Emotions,& his 11th, went Top 20, changes were clearly in order. The rockabilly Nelson loved and had imitated was out of fashion, replaced by softer pop music, some of it in a neo-big band style. On More Songs by Ricky, his first album in 11 months, Nelson shifted gears. One change was probably inevitable: Johnny and Dorsey Burnette, upon whom Nelson had relied for material, had launched their own solo careers and were less available to him, providing only one title, Dorsey's characteristic &Hey Pretty Baby.& Nelson's other songwriting standby, Baker Knight, had three songs on the LP, but he too was adapting to the new style. His &Ain't Nothin' But Love,& like another of the album's songs, &Here I Go Again,& sounded a lot like the horn-filled productions of Lloyd Price, who had replaced Nelson as the country's second biggest pop singles artist in 1959. Horns, in fact, abounded on the record, particularly a saxophone that took several fat solos. Without the Burnettes, Nelson turned back to the music of his bandleader father Ozzie, cutting covers of songs from the 1920s (&Baby Won't You Please Come Home,& &I'd Climb the Highest Mountain&), the 1930s (&When Your Lover Has Gone&), and the 1940s (&Time After Time,& &Again&) in arrangements that incorporated not only horns, but also strings and chirpy female backup vocals. It was all a big change from Nelson's previous recordings, and it did not restore his commercial fortunes.