Track Listing

1. All Around the World
2. Need Your Love So Bad
3. Home at Last
4. Fever
5. My Nerves
6. Suffering With the Blues
7. Person to Person
8. Talk to Me, Talk to Me
9. Spasms
10. Let's Rock While the Rockin's Good
11. Leave My Kitten Alone
12. Let Them Talk
13. I'm Shakin'
14. Heartbreak (It's Hurtin' Me)
15. Sleep
16. You Hurt Me
17. I Like to See My Baby - Hank Ballard, Little Willie John
18. Take My Love (I Want to Give It All to You)
19. Big Blue Diamonds
20. My Baby's in Love With Another Guy

Product Details

• Released on: 1993-12-02
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Best of, Import

From Amazon.com
Standing slightly more than five feet tall, Little Willie John scored his first hit at age 17. That 1955 R&B smash--"All Around the World" (also known as "Grits Ain't Groceries")--reflected his status as a seasoned veteran of several leading jazz/R&B big bands. John went on to record such noble rockers as "I'm Shakin'" (covered by the Blasters) and "Leave My Kitten Alone" (covered by the Beatles). However, his greatest success came when he set his torchy, gospel-drenched tenor to slow blues ("Need Your Love So Bad"), standards ("Sleep"), heartbreak ballads ("Talk to Me" and "Let Them All Talk"), and his flame-broiled original version of the oft-covered (Peggy Lee, Madonna, the Cramps, among others) incendiary title track. John was only 30 when he died--reportedly of either pneumonia or a heart attack--while imprisoned for manslaughter in 1968. That same year, James Brown recorded an album called Thinking of Little Willie John and a Few Nice Things. One listen to this 20-song Little Willie John compilation will tell you why. --Don Waller

Customer Reviews

A fine collection, by this great jump blues singer
Although my alltime favorite Little Willie John tune "I'm Sticking With You Baby"(an incredible jump blues) is missing, this is still a fine collection, that should be bought in tandem with the Collectibles cd(which has more songs, but many different ones). This cd has plenty of rollicking tunes, and although I'm really not a fan of John's balladry, he sounds best when singing uptempo jump blues or r&b tunes like Fever where he can use his rich vocals and attitute to thier fullest.

Some of the ballads that border on doo-wop are throwaways, but most of his hits were the jump blues tunes, and his voice sounds a little different with each performance, making him a unique performer who's voice on a good day could sound so smooth, slick and hip, and on other days weak and wimpy. This collection finds him in generally prime form, so pick this cd up along with the Collectables disc.

An Essential R&R CD for your Collection!
Little Willie John was a tremendous talent. Much more so than can be measured in a single release on 45, or even many albums. So it was a treat to get this Rhino CD, because they always have the BEST sound, and remaster from original sources.

The one thing, soundwise, that cannot be removed, is distortion. Fortunately for us, but unfortunately for his studio recordings, Willie possessed such a HUGE voice, that it often overloaded his solo microphone, and while that is disguised wonderfully on this release, it cannot be eliminated.

On "Fever", "All Around the World" and "Sleep" is it overcome almost entirely, and these are the best sounding versions you will find of these. However, "Spasms" and "Talk to Me" are not as wonderous in the audio category.

If you have to purchase ONE disc of this legendary writer/singer......grab this one. However you will also need "Little Mister Willie John", "Sure Things" and "Home at Last" to get all of his great songs!! The CD "28 Big Ones" is a great buy considering all the music, but has the worst sound quality of any. It's rather strange how a singer who influenced every R&B singer of his day, and well beyond, not to mention Peggy Lee and Sinatra, does not have a boxed set of all his recordings...............together, and possibly with a few radio appearances and live tracks. At LEAST his CDs are still in print, and I'd grab them ALL while they are. King records is still handling the releases, which might be why it would be wiser to turn the master session tapes over to, say, Bear Family, to make a thorough, complete release of this immortal artist, lost too soon.

Collects his two essential singles, and some great extras
Little Willie John had, for all intents and purposes, only two truly great songs, but the qualifier on that is that they really were really, truly great. Those two songs are "Fever" and "I Need Your Love So Bad." This isn't to say that none of his other recordings aren't worth listening do. They most certainly are, such as his excellent version of "All Around the World" and the superb "Sufferin' the Blues." Several other cuts are excellent also. But both "Fever" and "I Need Your Love So Bad" are absolutely essential soul classics, and will be remembered and performed as long as anyone sings great songs.

Most are familiar with the fact that Little Willie John was the first to record "Fever," but Peggy Lee the first to make it a hit. But it is almost impossible to imagine a more definitive version of the song than John's. The same holds true with "Need Your Love So Bad." If anything, his vocal on this is even stronger than on "Fever."

Unfortunately, Little Willie John's story is all too familiar. A short recording career from which he reaped virtually no economic benefit, and an early death, in his case from pneumonia contracted while serving a prison term in Washington state for having stabbed a man. It must have been galling for him to see others like Peggy Lee and Elvis and the Beatles recording songs he had recorded earlier, with not nearly as much to show for his efforts. But it must be stressed that while John did not record a great deal in his short career, he was by no means a one or two hit wonder. He possessed and emotional range in his singing matched by very few of the great singers from the 1950s, and successors like Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and Al Green all acknowledged his greatness as a vocalist.