Various Artists – He’s A Rebel: The Gene Pitney Story Retold

He’s A Rebel achieves the primary aims of any tribute album: to honor a unique and inspired performer, and to expose potential new fans to the performer’s work. Gene Pitney deserves the exposure. Though he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year, Pitney’s earnest brand of pop balladry isn’t much appreciated these days — and hasn’t been, really, since rock became so widely equated with rebellion.

Pitney’s instantly recognizable vocals have a piercing, quivering tone that makes it sound as if he’s belting it even when he’s singing barely above a whisper. Pitney still has a soaring high tenor that bristles with itchy energy today; his nervous system seems all in his throat. The result, on characteristically lush and dramatic early 1960s hits such as “Town Without Pity” and “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance”, is an intense expression of emotion — too intense, one fears, to be taken as anything short of corny by many contemporary listeners.

So it’s heartening that the artists on He’s A Rebel so obviously get the Pitney sensibility. With the exception of the Deviants, who perform “Liberty Valance” like pretending-to-be-drunk vaudevillians, there’s no camp here. On the other hand, many of the album’s two dozen contributors honor Pitney a bit too reverently — in most cases, just re-creating the phrasing and arrangements of the recordings they know by heart.

Musically, that means plenty of castanets and rolling rhythms and string sections (albeit synthesized ones) — a pleasant enough approach, but bound to disappoint. Barry Holdship’s arrangement of “Every Breath I Take”, for example, is agreeable and charming in its unoriginal way, but it can’t begin to approach its model, the glorious wall-of-sound of Pitney’s Phil Spector-produced version from 1961. As for mimicking Pitney’s soaring vocals, well, that’s a trick only a handful of humans should attempt.

The best moments come when those paying tribute don’t mimic their hero but reveal how his music has impacted their own. Tommy Womack bounces through a twangy and eager “Louisiana Mama”; Phil Angotti effectively reduces Pitney’s bombastic version of “Backstage (I’m Lonely)” to just an acoustic guitar and a gruff, pleading voice; and Ferdinand delivers a Nuggets-inspired rendition of the obscure “Half The Laughter, Twice The Tears”. But these are exceptions on a tribute that mostly feels like a missed opportunity.