Angel Eyes (1984)

This album, which I have only been able to find on LP, features Willie playing with guitar virtuoso Jackie King.  It opens with a version of “Angel Eyes.”  Willie also does this song on “Honeysuckle Rose” (a duet with Emmylou Harris) and on “American Classic” (2009).  Of the three, I think this is the best both because of Jackie’s guitar work and Willie’s stronger 1984 vocals.  The warmth of the vinyl also comes through on this recording.  Jackie’s no slouch on vocals either.  The rest of the band includes Bob Scott (drums), Don Hass (keyboards), and Jon Blondell (bass).  One of Willie’s most ruminative, meandering albums.  It’s darker than “Stardust.”  “Tumbling Tumbleweed” (track 2) seems like a quirky, odd choice to follow “Angel Eyes,” but like Thelonius Monk, Willie thrives on surprise.  We have the cowboy western notion of wanderlust embodied by the tumbling tumbleweed, the rolling stone gathering no moss, free and independent as it ranges over the dusty plains.  Hardscrabble and free and light.  Prickly and tough but turning like a whirling dervish, spinning like a sufi.  I never would have picked this for a jazz number, but the band plays it aggressively.  The time changes abruptly, jarringly at several points.  This may be one of the most unusual, bizarre recordings in Willie’s repertoire. “I Fall in Love Too Easily” (track 3) is a more standard jazz ballad.  Willie sings, “I fall in love too easy; I fall in love too fast.”  Another 5-star recording you won’t find anywhere else.  As good as anything on “Stardust,” but, again, a bit darker, a bit more haunting, a bit more hardcore jazz.  We almost sympathize with Willie when he sings, “I fall in love too terribly hard for love to ever last.  My heart should be well schooled because I’ve been fooled in the past.”  He loves people too much, that’s the problem.  I love you too much to stay true.  A victim of his own capacity for love.  “Thank You” (track 4) also appears only on this album.  “Thank you for all the dark nights that shine so brightly with your love…it was me you were always thinking of.”  I was always on your mind.  “And though you may be gone before you hear this song, tomorrow’s a new day, and I just have to say, even though you can’t be here, still I want to make this toast: here’s to the times, the rhythms and the rhymes, and thank you for loving me the most.” To all the girls I loved before.  Whether he wrote it or not, it has all the elements of a Willie song: time, mind, and tomorrow.  The guitar, piano, bass, and drums compliment Willie’s vocals perfectly.  Side two (which is meaningless on a CD, but it meant something on an LP), opens with the bouncy “My Window Faces the South.”  Willie recorded this with Jackie on “The Gypsy” (2001) and on his “Country Favorites” album (1966).  An interesting choice for a jazz album.  Who else can record the same song on an album called “Country Favorites” and on a jazz album?  Ray Charles.  That’s it.  The crying cowboy is “never frowning or down in the mouth” because his “window always faces the south.”  Hakuna Matata.  Don’t worry, be happy.  “Snow is falling but still I can see fields of cotton calling to me.”  Willie could sing these lines with a smoking fiddle or a brooding jazz guitar.  Willie plays “The Gypsy” (track 6) on his instrumental album, “Night and Day” (1999), and also on the album of the same name (“The Gypsy,” 2001).  He also played it with Jackie live on Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland.  This version sounds almost identical to the version on “The Gypsy.”  Even side-by-side I’m having trouble telling if it is the same recording.  Either way, both are good.  You can’t go wrong.  “There Will Never Be Another You” (track 7) is upbeat, but still has a dark undercurrent.  It’s another impossible promise song, another “I’ll love you forever” song.  “There’ll be many other nights like this, and I’ll be standing here with someone new.  There’ll be other songs to sing, another fall, another spring, but there will never be another you.  There’ll be other lips that I may kiss, but they won’t thrill me like yours used to do.  I may dream a million dreams, but how could they come true, for there will never ever be another you.”  What can this possibly mean?  That you will always be on his mind, even when he’s with someone else?  What kind of comfort or solace can this be?  And to whom?  He knows it’s crazy, knows time will slip away, even as he promises it won’t.  He both believes and disbelieves his own promise even as he sings it.  The album closes wordlessly with the instrumental “Samba for Charlie.”  Charlie Parker?  A country singer singing a jazz version of a samba?  “Spirit” and a few other Willie albums end without words, beyond words.  What a great album from start to finish.  Why is this out of print?  Why is this not on cd?  Was it never even released on cd?  Now that’s crazy.                  

The Electric Horseman (1979)

I’ve had this out-of-print LP for some time now, but no record player to play it on.  A friend just converted it into digital format, so now I can finally review it.  This soundtrack from the Robert Redford movie opens with Willie’s version of “Midnight Rider.”  I’ve reviewed this in a previous blog.  The same version shows up on the compilations “Walking the Line” (1987) and “One Hell of a Ride”; a different version shows up on “It Always Will Be” (2004).  I’m actually enjoying the little snaps and pops from the record needle.  Haven’t heard those since the early eighties.  I don’t have personnel, but it sounds like Mickey Raphael on harmonica.  The same version of “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys” (track 2) can also be found on the compilations “One Hell of a Ride” and “The Essential Willie Nelson”; a different version can be found on “Wanted: The Outlaws.”  I can’t believe Willie hasn’t recorded more versions of this classic song.  Sounds like it could be on “Red Headed Stranger” (1975).  I have a half dozen versions of “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” (track 3), but this one is the classic version (if not the best).  This version of “So You Think You’re a Cowboy” (track 4) can only be found here, so that makes this album worth buying. That and the fact that Willie’s voice is so strong in the 1970s.  True fans need to have any recordings of his from the 1970s. The only other version I can find is on “Honeysuckle Rose” (1980), but Emmylou Harris sings it without Willie.  The lyrics are especially Proustian:

So you think you're a cowboy but you're only a kid
With a mind to do everything wrong
And it starts to get smoother when the circle begins
But by the time that you get there it's gone

So you think you're a winner but you're losin’ again
The cards have already been dealt
And the hand that you're playin’ means nothing at all
And knowing is all that is left

So live life as you find it the best that you can
Tomorrow cannot right the wrong
Don't wait for tomorrow to bring you your dreams
‘Cause by the time that you get there they're gone

It’s got all the classic Willie-Proust concepts: mind, time, and tomorrow.  He’s got a “mind to do everything wrong.”  “Tomorrow cannot right the wrong” flies in the face of “the healing hands of time.”  Tomorrow both can and cannot heal today.  Live in the present; don’t wait for tomorrow, unless, of course, you want to hang out in the past with a memory or two.  Once again, Willie is out-foxing time by not playing by its rules.  He won’t wait for tomorrow; he won’t wait for time to run its course.  He hits the fast forward button, the TIVO, and has it all when he wants it, on his own terms.  Just like his phrases, his meter, his time.  No need to wait for the beat, the four bars.  Get there on your own terms, in your own sweet time.  This version of “Hands on the Wheel” (track 5) only appears here; the other version appears on “Red Headed Stranger” (1975).  The “Red Headed Stranger” version is the better of the two, but this rare track, even with the syrupy strings, makes this LP worth buying.  That and Mickey Raphael’s harmonica.  Willie produced the first side of this LP, but tracks 6-10 are disco tunes, which I won’t review here.  I wish Willie would sing on a few disco songs just to round out his exploration of genres.  He’s done everything else.            

Outlaw Country: Live from Austin, TX (1996)

This live album was recorded on September 22, 1996 for the “Austin City Limits” TV show.  I will focus on the tracks featuring Willie, though the cast includes Waylon, Kris, Billy Joe Shaver, and Kimmie Rhodes, along with Mickey Raphael, Jerry Bridges, Gabe Rhodes, and Eddy Shaver.  You hear Trigger here and there on tracks even when Willie isn’t singing.  You also hear Willie commenting occasionally between tracks.  The singers are sitting in chairs on a stage.  The sound is like that you’ll find in the Bluebird Café in Nashville.  1996 is the year Willie recorded “Spirit,” possibly my favorite Willie album, so this is an important album for me because it provides another example of Willie’s voice during this pivotal year in his career.  Willie kicks off “Just One Love” (track 3) with Kimmie Rhodes.  It blows the studio recordings of this album right out of your cd player (our out of your ITUNES playlist).  Willie recorded a studio version in 1995 with Kimmie, but it can’t compare with this one.  You can only find versions of “We Don’t Run” (track 5) in a few other places (“Songbird,” “Spirit,” and a 1996 KGSN Radio Austin Broadcast).  Although Willie says in the intro that he used to do this song with The Highwaymen, I don’t see any versions on the three Highwaymen albums.  Mickey’s harmonica bolsters several songs in this set.  This is the only other place besides “Spirit” you will hear my favorite Willie Nelson song, “Too Sick to Pray” (track 10).  Not surprisingly, Willie opens this most serious of songs by cracking jokes about “Whiskey River” and “I Gotta Get Drunk.”  He calls it a “loophole song.”  Interestingly, “Spirit” is one of the few Willie albums that doesn’t feature Mickey Raphael on harmonica, so it is a treat to hear him play on this song in this setting.  They close the set with Willie’s classic anthem “On the Road” (track 14).  A solid version, but not my favorite, though Trigger features prominently.         

Assorted Singles (not available on any Willie albums or compilations)

A few hours on ITUNES the other night yielded a few singles from various compilation and tribute albums.  I haven’t found these songs on any of Willie’s own compilation albums yet, so it is much more economical to buy these singles on ITUNES than to buy the entire albums (especially when most of the albums only have one Willie song).  Willie will need to compile and issue these songs together at some point.

“Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth” appears to have been released only as a single in 2005.  Not sure who the male and female vocalists (or the sax player) are who accompany Willie.  One website had this to say of this song:

Willie wrote this song on Christmas, 2003, and will perform it for the first time at the Kucinich for President fundraising concert in Austin, Texas, on Jan. 3, 2004.

There's so many things going on in the world

Babies dying

Mothers crying

How much oil is one human life worth

And what ever happened to peace on earth

We believe everything that they tell us

They're gonna' kill us

So we gotta' kill them first

But I remember a commandment

Thou shall not kill

How much is that soldier's life worth

And whatever happened to peace on earth

(Bridge)

And the bewildered herd is still believing

Everything we've been told from our birth

Hell they won't lie to me

Not on my own damn TV

But how much is a liar's word worth

And whatever happened to peace on earth

So I guess it's just

Do unto others before they do it to you

Let's just kill em' all and let God sort em' out

Is this what God wants us to do

Now you probably won't hear this on your radio

Probably not on your local TV

But if there's a time, and if you're ever so inclined

You can always hear it from me

How much is one picker's word worth

And whatever happened to peace on earth

But don't confuse caring for weakness

You can't put that label on me

The truth is my weapon of mass protection

And I believe truth sets you free

“Please Come Home for Christmas” is on an acoustic country album (a friend gave it to me a few years ago, but I am just now realizing that it isn’t on any other Willie Christmas albums.  A live version of “What Was it You Wanted” (1993) can be found on “Bob Dylan: The 30^th Anniversary Concert Celebration.”  Not sure if it is Dylan or Mickey Raphael on harmonica.  Willie also sings this on “Across the Borderline” (1993).  Another version of Willie’s famous “Funny/Crazy” medley can be found on Neil Young’s “The Bridge School Collection, Vol. 1” (2006) along with a version of “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.”  I have over a dozen versions of this medley, but this may make my top five.  Just Willie, Trigger, and Mickey’s harmonica.  As good as Willie gets.  Surprisingly, I only have four other versions of “Mammas.”  Mickey’s harmonica shines on this version, but it can’t compete with the classic (if staged) live version with Waylon from 1978.  Somehow a reggae version of “A New Way to Cry” (2005) did not make it onto the “Countryman” album.  The only other example of this song comes from “The Ghost” (part 3).  I can’t believe this song would only be on “The Ghost,” though, so it must have another name on one of my Bear Family compilations .  Need to do some research on this.  A lovely version of “Philadelphia Lawyer” can be found on “Folkways: A Vision Shared: A Tribute to Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly” (1988).  Sounds like Johnny Gimble on fiddle and Mickey on harmonica.  This is the only place you’ll find Willie singing this song.        Apparently this version of “Marie” on “Poet: A Tribute to Townes Van Zandt” (2001)  was nominated for a Grammy.  Not sure how I haven’t run across it sooner.  How has this not been repackaged on a Willie compilation?  Sounds like Johnny Cash’s late albums produced by Mark Rubin.  Willie needs to record a whole album of songs like this.  Spare with just a guitar and Willie’s voice.  Willie’s version of John Lennon’s “Imagine” can be found on “Instant Karma: The Complete Recordings: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur” (2009).  Willie doesn’t attempt Lennon’s famous falsetto “Yoo-hoo!”  Mickey’s harmonica and Trigger outshine Willie’s vocals on this one.  Willie would agree with Lennon’s view of religion.  He’s a dreamer.  He’s all about karma and reincarnation.  Can’t believe Willie doesn’t sing “Lady Be Good” anywhere but on “Celebrating with Friends,” a tribute album to Johnny Gimble (2010).  He should record more with Gimble.  I’d like to know who’s on piano for this song.  A version of Willie singing “Still Water Runs Deepest” can be found on Asleep at the Wheel’s “Tribute to the Music of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys” (1993).  Willie also sings this on “Pancho and Lefty” (1983) and “Last of the Breed” (2007).  A version of Willie singing “Couple More Years” with Jerry Lee Lewis appears on Jerry’s duet album “Last Man Standing” (2006).  The only other place Willie sings this is on “Waylon and Willie” (1978).  Jerry sounds great on this recording, or awful, which is the same thing in country music.  His voice sounds more ragged and gravely than Willie’s, if that’s possible.  It’s slow and full of suffering and steel and harmonica and Trigger with flamenco flecks of pain and piano sprinkled throughout.

Miscellaneous Live Radio Broadcasts

Here are some live radio broadcasts that appear on limited release compilations.  The first recording comes from KBCO and features Emmylou Harris on harmony vocals for Willie’s own “Everywhere I Go.”  It sounds like the version Willie recorded for the “Teatro” album.  Next we have “Don’t Call Me,” a duet with Heather Myles from the “In the Wind” album.  It’s a rousing number with accordion that harkens back to Willie’s old Czech Polka band days.  Sounds like something Dwight Yoakam would do.  Rockabilly, I guess.  A version of “What a Difference a Day Makes” (written by Maria Grever and Stanley Adams) comes live from the Imus Ranch Record.  These lyrics fit perfectly into Willie’s Proustian oeuvre:

  

What a difference a day made

Twenty-four little hours

Brought the sun and the flowers

Where there used to be rain

My yesterday was blue, dear

Today I'm part of you, dear

My lonely nights are through, dear

Since you said you were mine

What a difference a day makes

There's a rainbow before me

Skies above can't be stormy

Since that moment of bliss, that thrilling kiss

It's heaven when you find romance on your menu

What a difference a day made

And the difference is you

What a difference time makes.  The healing hands of time.  What a difference Willie’s phrasing makes.  What a difference meter makes.  I haven’t found these last two songs on any other Willie albums.  What a difference memory makes.  What a difference our minds make, our attitudes about time.  Here Willie shapes the weather and the skies with his mind.  Time is on his side.  “Ou Es Tu, Mon/I Never Cared for You” comes from 107.1 KGSR Radio Austin Broadcasts vol. 7. (1999), again right around the time of “Teatro.”  “Wouldn’t Have It Any Other Way” comes from KGSR as well, volume 9 (2001).  Sounds very similar to the version on the 2001 album “Rainbow Connection” (the only other place I can find this song).  Both versions are exactly 1:57, but this version seems to have a more prominent harmonica, especially at the end.  “It Always Will Be” comes from KGSR vol. 13 (2005).  This is the only version I can find besides the title track from the album of the same name (2004).  “We Don’t Run” comes from KGSR vol. 4 (1996), around the time of “Spirit.”  It has a graceful fiddle solo that could be Johnny Gimble.  “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground” comes from vol. 10 (2002).  Trigger and Mickey Raphael’s harmonica help make this spare recording one of the best of the half dozen versions I have of this song.  I wonder how many more of these rare tracks are floating around out there in the ether?   

ITUNES Originals (2005)

I spent a few hours last night trolling through the ITUNES singles catalog looking for Willie Nelson songs that I don’t currently own.  I found about ten, going through seven pages of songs with 200 songs per page.  Most of these were songs Willie contributed to tribute albums for other artists.  I’ll review those in a future blog.  I also found this gem, which contains 21 tracks, some of which contain commentary by Willie.  It opens with an interesting version of “Whiskey River.”  Willie claims in track 3 that “you are what you think.”  He believes this, and it fits with his Proustian philosophy of time and mind, which also fits with modern neuroscience.  That we create time and memories with our mind and with our art.  We don’t just passively record time.  Track 4 contains a meandering, jazzy version of “Always on My Mind.”  I wish I knew who the musicians were on these recordings.  Sounds like Willie on Trigger and Mickey on harmonica.  Willie dedicates this version of “Pancho and Lefty” (track 5) to Hag and Townes Van Zandt.  Willie’s vocals are much more prominent in this version because the setting is much sparer.  Just guitar, bass, drums, harmonica, and a few folks in the background filling in during the chorus.  You can hear Trigger more clearly and distinctly than on most other recordings.  Jody Payne sings toward the end of this track, and his voice seems to be on its last legs (to mix anatomical metaphors).  I can never have too many versions of Willie’s classic “Funny/Crazy/Nite Life” medley, and this one ranks up there with the best of them (track 7).  At this point, I have 2,055 Willie Nelson tracks, which accounts for 4.4 days of music and 11.62 gigabytes.  Some of these tracks are duplicates which appear on compilations and original albums, but even these have different mixes, so I have almost a full working week’s worth of Willie, or over 100 hours of non-stop, no-repeat Willie.  Mickey’s Harmonica picks up on “Crazy.”  I wonder if sister Bobbie is on piano.  Any serious fan has to buy this collection to hear Willie re-doing so many of his classic songs in 2005.  His voice has faded in some ways, but gained character in others.  And the guitar work has become more jazz-like, more Jerry Garcia-like, more spacey and trippy.  I’d love to know how Willie recorded these tracks.  I’m guessing he just walked into the studio with his road band and did them all in one take and had lunch and did another show that night.  In track 8 Willie talks about “following your instincts.”  Instincts of the mind, instincts of time.  Swing is the instinctive feel, the emotion of time.  Art is setting time to emotion, or setting emotions in time.  “Beer for My Horses” (track 9) may be the most interesting track thus far on this album because it differs so much from the original hit single with Toby Keith.  “On the Road Again” (track 11) actually stays pretty true to the original hit version.  Willie tells the story of playing chess with Ray Charles in the dark with all the pieces the same color, and Ray beat him three times in a row.  This version of “Georgia on My Mind” (track 13) gave me the chills.  It has a little funk to it.  May be the best recording on the album so far.  Mickey’s harmonica sounds like it did on “Stardust.”  I only have two other versions of Willie singing “Texas,” so it was a real treat to find another version here (track 15).  Trigger steals the show on this track.  Texas is the only place for Willie, where his “spirit can be free.”  In the video for “Mendocino County Line” (track 17), Willie rode his horse down the main street in Austin.  Lee Ann Womack joins Willie for this recording, which upon closer examination appears to be the same one that hit the radio, which wouldn’t be an ITUNES original.  I’ll have to research that.  In track 18 Willie says, “All we have is right now.”  He tries to live in the present moment (despite all his songs about memories and the past).  A serviceable version of “Still is Still Moving to Me” (track 19).  Mickey’s harmonica works overtime on this one.  “Superman” (track 21) only appears in one other place (on Willie’s “Lost Highway” compilation).  Willie calls out to “little sister” to play a piano solo, followed by Mickey on Harmonica and Jody on guitar.  A fun song that Willie should sing more often.  “Tryin’ to do more than you can, but you ain’t superman.”  Willie ends with “How’d that sound, Freddy?”  Must be Freddy Fletcher (or Powers?) producing. 

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.