Billie Davis: Tell Him - The Decca Years (2005)

A vivacious and talented British singer who sustained a notable performing career throughout the ‘60s despite significant setbacks, Billie Davis certainly deserved greater chart success for her recordings, with really only the classic ‘Tell Him’ regularly making the general ‘60s compilations today. By the end of the decade, Billie had gone full circle with recording labels from Decca to Columbia to Pye then Decca again but not before making another classic record, ‘I Want You to Be My Baby,’ in 1968, that should have been a monster-sized hit, but sadly ended up just missing the Top 30. This is a superb collection comprised of Billie's singles for Decca, most of them dating between 1967 and 1970 (with four tracks from her 1963 stint with the label), and augmented with a handful of tracks from her self-titled 1970 album. It's all superb girl group-style pop, with a distinctly American, blue-eyed-soul edge and even an occasional psychedelic intrusion, highlighted by the northern soul dancer ‘Billy Sunshine,’ her impassioned versions of ‘Wasn't It You’ and ‘Angel of the Morning’ and the moving ‘Nobody's Home to Go Home To,’ among other tracks. There's not a loser in the bunch and, in fact, the songs all show an amazing consistency despite origins as different as Joe Cocker, Carole King, Ian Anderson (yes, she covered ‘Living in the Past’), and Neil Diamond. Strangely enough, the appending of the four early Decca sides at the end of the set is sort of jarring, throwing listeners back to an earlier (though still eminently enjoyable) era of British pop/rock. Should you want everything she recorded, try also her 28 track anthology ‘Whatcha Gonna Do: Singles, Rarities and Unreleased (1963-1966)’ -already posted on my other blog-, which contains all of her singles for Columbia and Piccadilly (including her duets as half of Keith & Billie), along with five previously unreleased 1963 cuts (two studio outtakes and three live performances). http://www.alibris.co.uk/, http://www.cherryred.co.uk/

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Billie Davis performing the song ‘Whatcha Gonna Do?’ on Top Gear (1965):