Chris Isaak - Devil Woman - Non-Album Tracks (1985-1988)

Here's another album where I felt blocked from posting it for a long time. This is a collection of stray tracks from the start of Chris Isaak's career. Isaak released his first album in 1985. During his first years, he played many covers in concert that he didn't put on album. This is mainly a collection of those. Unfortunately, because he wasn't a big star at first, there aren't many bootlegs from those years, and most of them are average sounding.

So, for a long time, I had a bunch of interesting covers to make up an album, but I felt I couldn't post it due to the sound quality. But happily, I waited and waited, and eventually I came across a better sounding bootleg. I used that for the last seven songs, which is the whole second half of the album. A few of the other songs still only sound good, not great, but I figure this is likely the best things are going to get, and the overall sound quality is good enough.

The only officially released song here is the first one, "Another Idea." That's a bonus track from his 1985 album, simply titled "Chris Isaak." All the other songs are taken from concert bootlegs.

On a different note, I want to comment why I think this album is worth listening to. To be honest, I'm not that big of a fan of Chris Isaak's studio albums. Sometimes he has good to great original songs, most notably his classic hit "Wicked Game." But too often, his songs are predictable, without a lot of variation from one song to another. I actually prefer his non-album tracks. I think the situation is very similar to Norah Jones, where her album songs generally fall into a predictable, samey mold, but she has a lot of non-album songs where she takes greater chances, and does many more covers, leading to greater variety.

For this album, I'm pretty sure that all the songs are covers, with the exception of the first one. Isaak is known for his retro sound based mainly in 1950s styles. He certainly knows his stuff, playing some interesting obscurities, as well as some well-known classics.

By the way, I like Isaak's non-album material so much that I have three more stray tracks albums of his. And I'll be able to post them soon, now that I've gotten past the problems mentioned above that stopped me from posting this one.

Here's the original artists for each song:

01 Another Idea - Chris Isaak
02 Devil Woman - Marty Robbins
03 Fortune Teller - Allen Toussaint
04 I Just Don't Understand - Ann-Margaret
05 Mystery Train - Junior Parker
06 Baby, Please Don't Go - Big Joe Williams
07 Believe What You Say - Ricky Nelson
08 The Man with the Golden Arm [Instrumental] - Elmer Bernstein
09 Bonnie B - Jerry Lee Lewis
10 Caledonia - Louis Jordan
11 Shake Your Hips - Slim Harpo
12 Vaya con Dios - Les Paul & Mary Ford
13 Dixie Fried - Carl Perkins
14 Honky Tonk [Instrumental] - Bill Doggett

Here's the usual song list:

01 Another Idea (Chris Isaak)
02 Devil Woman (Chris Isaak)
03 Fortune Teller (Chris Isaak)
04 I Just Don't Understand (Chris Isaak)
05 Mystery Train (Chris Isaak)
06 Baby, Please Don't Go (Chris Isaak)
07 Believe What You Say (Chris Isaak)
08 The Man with the Golden Arm [Instrumental] (Chris Isaak)
09 Bonnie B (Chris Isaak)
10 Caledonia (Chris Isaak)
11 Shake Your Hips (Chris Isaak)
12 Vaya con Dios (Chris Isaak)
13 Dixie Fried (Chris Isaak)
14 Honky Tonk [Instrumental] (Chris Isaak)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15127585/ChrisIsk_1985-1988_DevilWomanVariousSongs_atse.zip.html

The album cover uses a promotional photo of Isaak from 1985.