My Way

Resenha do Álbum

Paul Jones' debut album, 1966's My Way, found him and/or his record company seemingly determined to follow a far more all-around pop entertainer sound than Jones had trodden as the lead singer of Manfred Mann. Such strategies rarely yield fruitful results, and that was the case here, with a set list that, in trying to please everybody, came up short all around. Much of it is big-ballad pop in a sub-Tom Jones sort of style, and R&B/blues influences are, incredibly, virtually absent. Jones does manage to sneak in a few of his own songs (including an inferior remake of one he had done with the Manfreds, "She Needs Company"), but these are hardly exceptional. Coming on the heels of the Manfred Mann era, the bloated British orchestral pop arrangements -- more suited to Petula Clark (but not as good as Clark's) -- were disappointing indeed, yet the album did yield a big British hit with "High Time." My Way was reissued on CD in 1996 by RPM, with the addition of nine bonus tracks from singles, EPs, and unreleased material from the same era, under the title The Paul Jones Collection Vol. 1: My Way.

© Richie Unterberger /TiVo