Nancy Sinatra — Keep Walkin’: Singles, Demos & Rarities 1965–1978
Qobuz archival release review (Sept. 2023)
Nancy Sinatra and the team at Light in the Attic knocked it out of the park with the 2021 compilation Start Walkin’ 1965–1976, an absolutely top-shelf selection of twenty-three of singer’s best cuts from her prime era that beautifully showcased her hits as much as it did the wide streak of weird that ran through much of her material during that time. That set was so good that one would be rightfully suspicious that this 2023 companion piece focused on deep cuts, rarities, and unreleased tracks would be a barrel-scraping exercise meant for completists only. Well, the barrel may be getting scraped, but Nancy Sinatra’s output from the mid-’60s through the mid-’70s was a delightful combination of high-gloss AM radio perfection and freewheeling experimentation. These tracks may not have had the same cultural impact as “These Boots Were Made for Walkin’” or “Some Velvet Morning” but are still rewarding in their own way.
The collection starts off strong with the evocative pop-noir of “The City Never Sleeps at Night” (the bouncy b-side of “Boots”) and “The Last of the Secret Agents,” a dazzlingly goofy novelty number that served as the title theme for a 1966 parody of James Bond films starring Sinatra. Although there are a few weaker numbers scattered throughout — “Tony Rome” is atypically apathetic, and an inexplicable cover of the Move’s “Flowers in the Rain” shows that baroque psychedelia may not have been Sinatra’s forte — Keep Walkin’ is more than balanced out by dizzyingly great numbers like the languid and louche “Easy Evil” (a 1972 demo that was previously only available on the 1998 Sheet Music compilation) that show how her willingness to be weird never abated.
Sinatra’s early ’70s material is often overlooked. Not only did the cultural zeitgeist decidedly move on from her style — too square for the cool kids and too quirky to be “easy listening” — but she only released two albums during the decade, both in 1972. She nonetheless had a great run of non-LP singles between 1973 and 1976, and while some of those A-sides made their way onto the Start Walkin’ collection, Keep Walkin’ rounds out the tracklist by including her phenomenal cover of Lynsey De Paul’s “Sugar Me” (as well as the B-side, a somewhat questionable cover of “Ain’t No Sunshine”) and the stunning “Kinky Love” from 1976.
