Ann-Margret's RCA Victor debut album, And Here She Is..., didn't get much attention in 1961, but she did better with her bluesy single I Just Don't Understand, which peaked in the Top 20 in September. That set up this, her second solo LP, which featured I Just Don't Understand, and like it was recorded partially in Nashville under the aegis of Chet Atkins and Dick Pierce. The two naturally brought a slight country feel to some of the tracks, notably the remakes of Don Gibson's 1958 hit Oh, Lonesome Me and the 1960-1961 hit My Last Date (With You) (aka Last Date). But the closest approximation of the sound was the kind of country-inflected pop/rock being pursued by Elvis Presley around the same time, which made a rendition of Presley's first major hit, Heartbreak Hotel, an appropriate choice. At 20, Ann-Margret was an effective singer, if something of a chameleon, seeming to adopt a different persona for each number. She was at her most seductive singing Otis Blackwell's Slowly, and she came on like a Latin fireball on Fever, but was demure on the singles-chart entry What Am I Supposed to Do and ingenuously winning on Moon River. RCA Victor appears to have been hoping it had found a distaff Presley, and it's possible Ann-Margret might have justified such a hope if her film acting career hadn't quickly outpaced her recording career; by the time this album was released, her movie debut, #Pocketful of Miracles, had been out for several months and #State Fair, which would establish her as a redheaded bombshell, was just getting into theaters. (She was still a mousy brunette on the album cover.) On the Way Up was an appropriate title, but records would soon take a back seat to other career goals. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi

1		Oh, Lonesome Me
2		Slowly
3		Fever
4		What Do You Want From Me
5		Heartbreak Hotel
6		I Just Don't Understand
7		His Ring
8		Could It Be?
9		What Am I Supposed to Do
10		Let Me Go, Lover!
11		Moon River
12		My Last Date (with You)