We've had four number ones now from Mr Ifield, and given the title of this latest (and last) offering, it seems an apt time for me to confess that I don't get it, I really don't. Ifield's party trick has been to vamp up older country tunes with a contemporary pop arrangement with some good time yodelling over the top. One big hit could have been regarded as a novelty, but to score four chart toppers strikes me as a trifle bizarre, and try as I might I simply cannot find the key that unlocks that particular Sphinx riddle - the appeal is a closed book to me.'Confessin'' doesn't bring me any closer either; a 1930 song and one already much covered (by the likes of Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Perry Como, Doris Day, Guy Lombardo and Ella Fitzgerald no less), Ifield's own take gives it a polish with a cod dramatic arrangement and (another) Frankie Laine Jr vocal that makes for a song that's as playful as a mousetrap. Perhaps sensing the shift in tastes, the yodelling is strictly rationed to a walk on role - just enough to ensure continuity of trademark but not enough to dominate yet that by itself only serves to adds to its ordinariness. 'Confessin'' is a workaday enough recording, but then so were his three previous hits and it's sameness meant that Ifield was about to get slung out of the last chance saloon once the new kids on the block took over.
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