A dozen completely unreleased recordings — pressed in a run of fewer than 1,000 copies six decades ago — autographed blue vinyl and CD from Real Gone Music
For sixty years, the songs sat just out of reach. Only 500 to 1,000 copies were pressed in November 1964, their availability limited to A&R personnel and other music industry staff scouting material for recording artists. Now, one of the great hidden chapters in American songwriting finally opens to the public. On June 5, 2026, Real Gone Music releases Girl of Yesterday — Acoustic Folk Demos, a collection of twelve completely unreleased recordings by Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Jackie DeShannon, available on autographed CD and limited autographed blue vinyl.
This is not a reissue. It is a discovery. Where DeShannon’s 1963 self-titled debut for Liberty drew entirely on folk songs written by others, Girl of Yesterday presents a dozen tunes all penned by Jackie herself for an album distributed by Metric in 1964. Accompanied only by her own fingerpicked acoustic guitar, she delivered a haunting set imbued with the doubt, confusion, and excitement of finding adult identity — music grounded in folk but looking ahead to folk-rock and the singer-songwriter era in its lyrical maturity and melodic complexity.
What makes the find extraordinary is what these demos went on to become. The most renowned is “Don’t Doubt Yourself, Babe,” which The Byrds gave a Bo Diddley beat on their Top Ten 1965 debut Mr. Tambourine Man — though it appears here, in its far folkier original arrangement, under the title “It’s Gonna Be All Right.” Marianne Faithfull would later cover the bittersweet “With You in Mind” on her 1967 album Love in a Mist, and the collection also captures the first appearance of “Splendor in the Grass,” which DeShannon released as a single in 1966. To hear them in their bare, original form is to hear pop history at the moment of its writing.
The release has been treated with the care the material demands. Remastered by Mike Milchner at Sonic Vision, the set features photos from DeShannon’s private collection and liner notes by Richie Unterberger drawn from candid recollections by Jackie about the songs and the vibrant mid-‘60s Los Angeles scene from which they emerged. Real Gone aptly calls it a missing and utterly charming chapter in both Jackie’s own evolution and the progression of American folk and pop toward more sophisticated forms.
Girl of Yesterday — Acoustic Folk Demos is available now for pre-order. The autographed CD is priced at $17.99, with autograph editions limited to one per customer; the autographed blue vinyl is a strictly limited pressing. Order directly at realgonemusic.com.
Autographed blue vinyl LP: https://bit.ly/4fdenOT
Autographed CD: https://bit.ly/4eahVQP
Track listing: Girl of Yesterday · What’s It All About · New Thoughts · To Be Myself · It’s Gonna Be All Right · With You in Mind · Your Heart Is Missing · Splendor in the Grass · Hand Made Silver Ring · You Could Break My Heart · Too Far Out · Still Around
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