Honky Tonk Heroes (1999)

Here’s another hard-to-find album that doesn’t appear on many discographies.  This is also another album where an artist was recording an album at Willie’s Pedernales studio, and Willie wanders in and takes over.  Eric Paul and Eddie Shaver began producing this album of Billy Joe Shaver songs in 1989, but it didn’t get released until 1999.  In the meantime, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings wandered into the studio at various times to add tracks to the album.  The album opens with Shaver’s “Honky Tonk Heroes (Like Me).”  Willie and Waylon (I think; the liner notes do not indicate who sings vocals on each track) share vocal duties.  Waylon sings this song on “Wanted: the Outlaws,” so that makes me think it’s him and not Billy Joe.  The band includes Eddy Shaver (guitar), David Crockett (drums), David Cochran (bass), and Bucky Meadows (piano).  “Willie the Wandering Gypsy and Me” (track 2) appears to have Kristofferson on vocals.  It contains this great line: “moving’s the closest thing to bein’ free.” And this: “Willie, you’re wild as a Texas blue norther, ready rolled from the same makin’s as me, and I reckon we’ll ramble ‘till hell freezes over.”  This must be Shaver’s autobiographical song about life on the road with Willie.  He adds, “there never will be a single soul livin’ can put brand or handle on Willie the wandering gypsy or me.”  Willie does seem to defy brands, labels, and handles.  “I’m Just an Old Chunk of Coal” (track 3) also appears on Willie’s compilation album “Joy,” which I have reviewed in a previous blog.  “Ain’t No God in Mexico” (track 4) features Willie and Waylon.  I can’t find this song on any other Willie album.  Reminds me of Cormac McCarthy’s border trilogy: “that border-crossin’ feelin’ makes a fool out of a man.”  The line “If my feet could fit a railroad track, I guess I’da been a train” fits Willie and his life story.  “You Asked Me To” (track 5) opens with Billy Joe singing.  Willie and Waylon join him as the song progresses.  Willie’s vocals and guitar shine on this track.  Waylon co-wrote this song with Billy Joe.  Kristofferson joins the trio on vocals for “Oklahoma Wind” (track 6).  They sing of “dead tomorrows planted yesterday.”  “I Couldn’t Be Me Without You” (track 7) is all Willie and, not surprisingly, the best track on this album.  Worth the price of the cd.  I haven’t found Willie singing this on any other album.  Billy Joe sings lead on “Tramp On Your Street” (track 8).  Willie sings a faint back-up.  I feel like I’ve heard Willie sing this before, but I can’t find it at present on any other Willie album.  Willie certainly agrees with Billy Joe’s lyrics: “I don’t count on tomorrow.  I just live for today.”  “Easy Come Easy Go (aka: Ride Me Down Easy)” (track 9) opens with Willie singing this great line: “The highway she’s hotter than 9 kinds of hell.”  Willie takes the lead vocals on this track, which makes it one of the two best tracks on the album.  The album closes with all four honky tonk heroes singing on “We Are the Cowboys” (track 10).  The song tries to be serious, but the lyrics don’t make much sense.  Even these legendary country vocalists can’t save these jumbled lines.  An inconsistent album, but worth owning for tracks 7 and 9.           

Walking the Line (1987)

Not sure exactly what this is.  A compilation of sorts.  Not sure why Willie has never done much with George Jones, but here is the only example I can find of them singing together.  I don’t have the personnel, but the fiddle sounds like Johnny Gimble on “I Gotta Get Drunk” (track 1), and the harmonica could very well be Mickey Raphael.  If this first track is any indication, George and Willie should sing together more often.  George sings, “Willie, I could name you a few.”  “No Show Jones” (track 2) pairs Merle and George.  Another keeper.  A history of Honky Tonk greats.  “Pancho and Lefty” (track 3) appears to be the classic version from the Willie-Hag duet album of the same name.  “Yesterday’s Wine” (track 4) pairs Hag and the Possum singing one of Willie’s classic tunes.  This track alone makes the disc worth owning.  “Half a Man” (track 5) also seems to be from “Pancho and Lefty.”  “Big Butter and Egg Man” (track 6) features Hag with a jaunty piano and fiddle.  “Heaven or Hell” (track 7) appears to be a live recording from the “Honeysuckle Rose” album (1980).  It sounds like Mickey Raphael on harmonica.  This driving version of “Midnight Rider” (track 8) appears to be from “The Electric Horseman” soundtrack (recorded Fall 1979, according to the liner notes in “One Hell of  Ride”).  “Are the Good Times Really Over” (track 9) is all Hag.  “A Drunk Can’t Be a Man” (track 10) is all George.  So this isn’t much of a Willie album, but it’s worth owning for tracks 1,2, and 4, which may be hard to find anywhere else.

All of Me (Live…In Concert) (2002)

This appears to be a collection of songs from a 2001 concert (or concerts) in Amsterdam.  I’m not sure this is correct, though, because I can’t believe Willie just did a concert of classic ballads and standards.  He has his road band/family with him along with Jackie King on lead guitar, but Willie usually sticks to a pretty standard set list, opening with “Whiskey River,” etc.  Whatever the case may be, these are some of Willie’s best versions of these songs.  The late 1990s and early 2000s produced many of my favorite Willie performances.  Willie also did several things with Jackie King during this time period, all of which are phenomenal—live on Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland and “The Gypsy” album.  This album is another hidden gem that needs to be better known.  It opens with lovely versions of “Help Me Make it Through the Night,” “Blue Skies,” and “Georgia on My Mind.”  Mickey Raphael’s harmonica solo on “Georgia on My Mind” (track 3) earns the applause he gets from the crowd.  This version of “Me and Paul” (track 4) takes a different path than many of Willie’s others.  It’s nice to hear Willie talking between songs and introducing the band.  He sings, “I thought Branson was the roughest” in this version.  The crowd really gets in to “City of New Orleans,” which is interesting for a concert in Amsterdam.  Jackie King’s jazzy guitar runs add a little Jerry Garcia, Grateful Dead feel to some of these songs.  Willie picks up the pace for a speedy version of “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone” (track 6) with solos by sister Bobbie (Piano) and Jackie King.  Not my very favorite version of “Funny How Time Slips Away” (track 7), but I have eleven or twelve versions, and this ranks up there with the best of them.  The same could be said for this version of “Always On My Mind” (track 8).  I have half a dozen versions of this song, and this performance holds its own with the others.  “All of Me” (track 9) stands out as a more driving version than the one on “Stardust,” mostly fueled by Jackie King’s guitar solo, which garners applause from the crowd.  Willie recorded “I Never Cared for You” in 1998 for the “Teatro” album, so it is neat to hear him sing it live in 2001.  It opens with extensive piano and guitar work.  Without question, this album makes my untenable top ten.  Just needs better liner notes to explain more fully the details of the dates and locations of the recordings.  Willie opens track 11 by shouting, “What about some Ernest Tubb?”  This version of “Walkin’ the Floor Over You” is the only example I have of Willie singing this.  This song is worth the price of the used CD.  Of course he would close the album with a version of “Stardust” (track 12).  I actually only had three versions of this song (on the original “Stardust” album; the 2003 Willie Nelson and Friends concert for “Stars and Guitars” (with Aaron Neville on lead vocals); and the “Two Men with the Blues” album with Wynton Marsalis), so it is a real treat to find another version.  Willie should sing this song more often.        

The Offenders Re-Union: Can’t Get the Hell Out of Texas (1995)

Here’s another Bear Family re-issue gem.  One of Willie’s earliest and briefest road band configurations, The Offenders (later called “The Radio Men”), consisted of Jimmy Day (steel), Johnny Bush (vocals/drums), David Zettner (bass), and Willie (guitar/vocals).  This group, along with Floyd Domino (piano) and Johnny Gimble (fiddle), also appears on the 1995 recording “Me and the Drummer” (also released as “Tales Out of Luck”).  I reviewed that album on a previous blog, and I think it is far superior to this album, but I’m not sure why.  Same group, same year.  Maybe it’s the mix of songs.  Perhaps it is because “Me and the Drummer” consists of all Willie-penned originals, and “Can’t Get the Hell Out of Texas” has a number of songs written and sung by other folks.

In any case, this one opens with the title song (written by John Hadley), which contains this classic line: “In Texas we raise hell just like it was a crop…  It started with the Alamo, and it ain’t ever gonna stop….You can’t get the hell out of Texas, ‘cause it’s the hell-raisin’ center of the earth.”  Johnny Bush takes the lead vocal duties.  I think the story behind this album is that Jimmy Day was trying to record his own album at Pedernales, and Willie wandered in and saw that all the former Offender band members were there, so he decided to do an Offender’s Reunion record.  This purely instrumental version of Conway Twitty’s “Linda on My Mind” showcases Jimmy Day’s weeping steel.  Willie takes the lead vocals for his own “I’m So Ashamed” (track 3), which is as good as anything he has recorded and worth the price of this CD.  Upon closer examination, this appears to be the same version of the song that appears on “Me and the Drummer.”  Hmmm.  Willie has only recorded this song a few times: an un-released outtake on “The Complete Atlantic Recordings” and a duet version with Ray Price on “Run That By Me One More Time.”  It’s one of Willie’s best songs, and he should play it more often.  “Daybreak” (track 4), an upbeat Jimmy Day tune, features Day’s steel, Willie’s Trigger, and Gimble’s fiddle.  Johnny Bush sings Conway Twitty’s “Walk Me to the Door” (track 5).  “Sleepwalk” (track 6) features some of Day’s most eloquent work on steel.  The steel seems to be meowing the lead vocals.  Johnny Bush sings Willie’s “Are You Sure This is Where You Want to Be” (track 7).  Jimmy Day’s steel sings Willie’s “She’s Not For You” (track 8), a song made for the steel guitar.  Willie’s guitar work stands out more prominently on this track as well.  Jimmy Day appears to be singing his own “I Know I Love You” (track 9), though Johnny Bush is credited with vocals in the liner notes.  The melancholy “There She Goes” (track 10) and the up-tempo Hank Williams’ tune “Hey Good Lookin’” (track 11) are purely instrumental numbers featuring guitar, steel, and piano.  The only other track with Willie on vocals, “Rainy Day Blues” (track 12), appears to be the same version that appears on “Me and the Drummer.”  In short, the best two tracks on this album are the ones with Willie on vocals, and those can be found on “Me and the Drummer,” so most listeners will want to skip this album and just pick up a copy of “Me and the Drummer.”                

Nacogdoches Waltz (1993)

I stumbled upon this album accidentally while looking for something else.  Looking for Willie Nelson albums is like panning for gold.  You never know when you’ll find some new album that hasn’t appeared on any previous discography you’ve seen.  You have to follow footnotes and sidenotes and rabbit trails and such.  This all-instrumental album with Paul Buskirk (mandola), Willie (guitar), Paul Schmidt (piano), Dean Reynolds (upright bass), and Mike Lefbevre (drums) opens with the gentle title cut, “Nacogdoches Waltz.”  Willie’s vocals often overshadow his guitar playing, so I enjoy hearing him play on an instrumental album where I can focus on his guitar work, which shines on Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady” (track 2).  “Little Rock Get-A-Way” (track 3) jumps, especially the piano.  “Intermezzo” (track 4) features some of the most delicate mandola and guitar work on the album.  ITUNES calls this album pop, but “Dardanella” (track 5) defies categorization.  Flamenco-inflected mandola jazz?  “Under Paris Skies” (track 6) could be part of the soundtrack for the Cormac McCarthy novel I’m reading now (set in Mexico), “The Crossing.”  Willie Nelson doing Bach?  Never imagined I’d hear that, although I guess he did Bach’s “Minuet in G” as a bonus track on “Red Headed Stranger.”  The rousing, driving, puckish “Joy (Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring)” (track 7) gets five stars.  “Nola” (track 8) has a pleasingly deceptive slightness and simplicity, as does “I Will Wait for You” (track 9).  Mandola virtuosity abounds even amidst these ditties.  A jazzy version of the traditional Christmas song “Greensleeves” (track 10), which manages somehow to sound fresh, rounds out the collection.  Country western baroque jazz?  Whatever it is, it’s worth owning.            

Nashville was the Roughest (disc 8)

This disc includes Willie’s July 9th, 1966 concert at Panther Hall in Fort Worth, Texas.  While this concert can also be found on the “Live Country Music Concert” album (which I have already reviewed in a previous blog), the Bear Family has included three songs that did not make the original live album.  Just another reason why serious fans need to own this box set.  According to the liner notes there were some minor overdubs made to enhance the recording, but it remains one of Willie’s best albums.  I first reviewed this album in May 2010, and it stands up to repeated listenings.  The liner notes list the musicians as Wade Ray (bass), Jerry “Chip Young” Stembridge (rhythm guitar), Johnny Bush (drums), and Willie (vocal/leader/electric guitar), and an overdubbed steel guitar.  It’s strange to see Willie in a picture from the concert playing an electric guitar and not his nylon-stringed acoustic companion and soulmate, Trigger.  Willie sings “How Long is Forever” (track 9) the same way he does on his studio album, holding the pause after “how long is forever” unbearably long before he relieves the audience’s anxiety with “this time.”  There is no better example of Willie flirting with time and the audience’s expectations.  These recordings of Leon Payne’s “I Love You Because” (track 13), Willie’s “I’m Still Not Over You” (track 14), and Hank Williams’ “There’ll Be No Teardrops Tonight” (track 15) did not make the original album, but I have no idea why.  They are as good as or better than any of the other tracks, but maybe they are too slow and understated.  Not sure where else you can hear Willie play live with such a quiet back-up band.  At times it’s almost like a Grateful Dead concert during the space/drums portion of their concerts.  It’s a wonderfully jazzy, trippy, experimental version of Hank Williams, if that is even possible.      

Nashville was the Roughest (disc 7)

Nashville was the Roughest (disc 7)

This disc includes the entire albums of “Texas in My Soul” and “Yesterday’s Wine” followed by a few versions of songs that would later appear on “Phases and Stages” for Atlantic.  I have commented on these albums in previous blogs, so I will focus on the material that is only available here.  These recordings with just Willie, Paul English (drums), and Bee Spears (bass) are as raw as anything in Willie’s catalog except for the Pamper demos.  This version of “Pretend I Never Happened” (track 23) may be better than the one that ended up on “Phases and Stages.”  “Sister’s Coming Home” (track 24) and “Down at the Corner Beer Joint” (track 25) aren’t as strong, but still well worth owning.  “I’m Falling in Love Again” (track 26) is as good as Willie gets.  The disc ends with two novelty songs: “Chet’s Tune” (on which Willie only sings a phrase) and “Poor Old Ugly Gladys Jones.”