Touching Home/Would You Take Another Chance on Me?

by Jerry Lee Lewis

Overview

BGO's 2013 two-fer combines two Jerry Lee Lewis albums from 1971: Touching Home and Would You Take Another Chance on Me? The Killer made his country comeback in 1968, so these records came in the thick of his period as a reliable country hitmaker -- and, appropriately enough, there are hits here. Specifically, Touching Home has the title track, which reached number three on the U.S. country charts, and "When He Walks on You (Like You Have Walked on Me)," which made it to 11, and Would You Take Another Chance on Me? has the number one title track in its languid ballad and "Me and Bobby McGee," which was his first song to crack the pop Top 40 since 1961's "What I'd Say." This suggests Would You is the poppier album of the pair and that's true in general, even if it isn't true in specific to "Me and Bobby McGee," which is loose and muscular in a way the thickly polished LP usually isn't. It harks back to his classic Sun sides and looks forward to his Southern Roots comeback two years down the road, but much of Would You Take Another Chance on Me? is slowed by layers of backing vocals, gauzy accouterments that turn this into an album approximating romance, even though it includes gospel ("Thirteen at the Table"), lewd R&B ("Big Blon' Baby"), and a saloon ballad ("Swinging Doors"). Although it has its share of backing vocals, Touching Home is a harder country album, lacking the overall sweetened gloss. It's a good, strong shot of barroom country, filled with brokenhearted ballads and enlivened by a rollicking "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone" and given some pathos by "Mother, the Queen of My Heart," a bit of kitsch that doesn't seem so corny when surrounded by so much tough country. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Product Details

Release Date:	05/14/2013
Label:	Beat Goes On
UPC:	5017261211026
Rank:	110745

Tracks

1. When He Walks on You (Like You Have Walked on Me)
2. Time Changes Everything
3. Help Me Make It Through the Night
4. Mother, the Queen of My Heart
5. Hearts Were Made for Beating
6. Foolish Kind of Man
7. Touching Home
8. Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone
9. You Helped Me Up (When the World Let Me Down)
10. When Baby Gets the Blues
11. Comin' Back for More
12. Would You Take Another Chance on Me
13. Another Hand Shakin' Goodbye
14. Swinging Doors
15. Thirteen at the Table
16. Big Blon' Baby
17. Lonesome Fiddle Man
18. Me and Bobby McGee
19. For the Good Times
20. Things That Matter Most to Me
21. The Hurtin' Part
22. The Goodbye of the Year