Ride Your Pony

AMG Review of Ride Your Pony

Richie Unterberger
All Music Guide

Aside from the title track and the oft-covered, ultrafunky "Get Out of My Life, Woman," none of the 12 songs on this early 1966 album are familiar to most listeners. As it turns out, it's a quality full-length bridging early-'60s New Orleans R&B with soul, even if the songs tend to be on the light partying side. That's part of the main draw of much New Orleans music, of course, and few were better at projecting a relaxed sense of fun than Lee Dorsey. It helped that all but two of the songs were written by co-producer Allen Toussaint; the Crescent City giant doesn't get nearly as much attention as Smokey Robinson, but as with Smokey, one wonders if Toussaint ever slept in the 1960s, so prolific and generally fine was his output.