José Feliciano - Feliciano!, album review

Never Better Covered

Is this the greatest covers album, ever? Released in 1968 on the back of the great version of a superb song, The Doors’ Light My Fire, I would say it is. This didn’t make my Top Fifty, but it could/should have. The album also made a star of Feliciano, and he never made a better album, but this did for his career.

A1	California Dreamin'
A2	Light My Fire
A3	Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying
A4	In My Life
A5	And I Love Her
B1	Nena Na Na
B2	(There's) Always Something To Remind Me
B3	Just A Little Bit Of Rain
B4	Sunny
B5	Here, There And Everywhere
B6	The Last Thing On My Mind

The virtuoso guitar playing is a major factor, but it is probably the vocal and acoustic/orchestral arrangements that carry this, the Puerto Rican lilt/language adding the exotic. And, naturally, the songs themselves and their clever selection, tapping into current hits as well as the known of Lennon/McCartney. It would be hard for someone of Feliciano’s talent to have made a pig’s ear of such an innate excellence.

Stand-outs are LMF and a beautiful cover of California Dreamin’. Another surprise gem – in as much as The Beatles’ songs are inevitably popular – is the Marsden Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying. Plaintive perfection.

One of my first albums.