The most successful in a string of
pop
-oriented albums
Jimmy Dean
released during the early to mid-'60s,
The First Thing Ev'ry Morning
is perhaps the finest example of
Dean
's super-smooth,
Hank Williams
-by-way-of-
Lawrence Welk
hybrid
country
style. At times sounding like
Frank Sinatra
's backwoods cousin,
combines full-throated crooning, lush orchestral arrangements, and an oohing/aahing chorus with a fairly straight two-step beat. The material consists of both
standards
(by the likes of
Irving Berlin
and
Henry Mancini
) and Nashville fare, which, given the
treatment, all sound as if they could've been written by the same person. Music this slick is obviously a love-it-or-hate-it affair, but
's genius was that he could inject just the right amount of
honky tonk
raw edge into even the sappiest surroundings. Of course, if one were to take away the glockenspiel and oboes,
's voice would still be a thing of supple beauty, the equal of any of his contemporaries. The string-laden title track was a number one record, but the best tunes are the ones where the real
can step out a little. On
"Shutters and Boards,"
the lyrics' rural imagery seems to be pulling out his
roots despite the producers' efforts to keep them in check.
invests the song with a pathos worthy of
George Jones
, which is no mean feat considering the backing singers sound like they just stepped out of the Mormon Tabernacle. On the album's last song,
"Harvest of Sunshine,"
which gets the Hollywood-style
Dixieland
treatment (think
Apple Dumpling Gang
),
goes so far over the top that it's almost subversive. Considering his ever-present fake smile and later success in the sausage business, it just may be. ~ Pemberton Roach