Raven Records in Australia got the ball rolling a couple of weeks ago with their release of the Two-for-One CD featuring Jessi's classic Capitol albums I'm Jessi Colter (1975) and Diamond in the Rough (1976), but I'm stumped as to the source for the release you'll find available for pre-order here. The packaging certainly looks very reminiscent of the Raven Records offering (see previous blog entry for more details), only this time we have an "album cover" dominated by the muy sexy Roy Kohara shot of Jessi in the woods putting on her bling -- the shot used on the back cover of I'm Jessi Colter. This product, however, promises not two but three "digitally remastered" Jessi albums (a total of thirty songs) on two CDs. No longer is Diamond in the Rough a sonic bookend, as it is in the Raven Records twofer; Jessi's early 1976 Capitol bestseller, Jessi, is part of the line-up and here fills-in a crucial chronological gap.
Jessi was, of course, positioned as the follow-up to the hugely successful I'm Jessi Colter and, for many reasons and in many respects, Jessi was considered by numerous critics and fans to be an even superior work. That is saying something, given the splash she made critically and commercially with I'm Jessi Colter and the expectations that must have been in the air for an appropriate "sequel". Stamped indelibly (as were the first four of Jessi's Capitol albums) with the red-hot, on-target production of Ken Mansfield, Jessi still stands -- in my own opinion -- as her artistic apex, just slightly edging I'm Jessi Colter and Out of the Ashes. We'll be delving into deep discussion about all of her records soon enough, but for now let it be noted that 1976's Jessi pushed some astonishing new boundaries in terms of raw stylism, soulful authoritativeness, and originality. This was no "pop" record ... and no "country" record, for that matter.
It was Jessi Colter music, up at the sharp-end.
10 more entirely self-written compositions shine on this collection, each tune exploring the sensual, spiritual, and passionate journey of the heart in love's labyrinth. The brilliance of this particular record seems to rest in the fact that Colter managed to underscore the femininity of her perspective (as she did so well on I'm Jessi Colter) while simultaneously expanding the scope of her music's universal relevance -- a jaw-dropping trick if ever there was one. This was a record women and men could love equally. Again, every track on Jessi is a slice of brilliance, with churning album-opener The Hand that Rocks the Cradle being, arguably, the best song song she ever wrote and sang in her life ... a country-rock anthem that still makes the hairs on your neck stand up and salute. The big hit off this album was the radiant, almost mystically declarative It's Morning (And I Still Love You), but one wonders whether, by this time, Capitol was beginning to experience a real conundrum when it came to promoting the genuinely uncategorizable genius they had been sort of shuffling back-and-forth between pop/rock, AOR, MOR, and country markets for over a year. With the Outlaws album craze only a few months away, the label's last chance to establish, pinpoint, develop, and/or fine-tune Colter's distinctive and independent marketing "identity" for posterity may have been compromised. Ironic, indeed.
Whatever the case may be, Jessi proved to be another mammoth hit for Colter, equalling the No. 4 peak of her previous album on the country chart in Spring 1976, climbing high into the Billboard Pop Top 200, and forcing a few hold-out critics (who may have remained a tad skeptical of the uber-pop appeal of I'm Not Lisa) to eat a bit of crow. Therefore, it makes much more sense for any current company bent on reissuing "classic" Jessi Colter albums to do so with the inclusion of Jessi, if only because there is such a palpable gap in style when I'm Jessi Colter and Diamond in the Rough are considered in sequence without it. Whomever is releasing this triumvirate of essential Colter albums is to be commended, but the name of the label eludes us at this juncture (it is not given at CDUniverse) and we will have to see from whence, exactly, this intriguing new configuration is slated to emerge. Jessi Colter's "people" are apparently not saying much in the way of publicity. Let's hope The Great Lady herself is aware that her work is being reissued so she can take some well-deserved pride in the process. Stay tuned. My Jessi "bio for the blog" is coming relatively soon, as well.
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