American Classic (2009)

So Willie’s on Blue Note now. Except for Mickey Raphael on harmonica for four tracks, none of Willie’s usual band members (Paul, Bobbie, etc.) are on this album. Willie doesn’t even play guitar except on track 8. I didn’t like this album much when I first got it a few weeks ago, but it’s growing on me. It isn’t Stardust and never will be, but it’s not bad. His voice is fading, but his timing is still impeccable, impeccably off, that is, but that’s his shtick. Diana Krall and Norah Jones are perfect choices for duets. Their perfect smoothness juxtaposed to his gravelly meandering makes for an interesting, full-bodied sonic flavor. I wanted to like this version of “Always on My Mind,” but he has so many other wonderful versions, that this one can only pale in comparison. Makes me wonder how Willie’s voice can and will age. His voice sounded well-aged at 20, so how can it age at 77?

So I’m listening to the album a second time through. I’m downstairs in the cold basement watching my daughters bounce on their new trampoline and reading an article in the New Yorker about the CEO of Whole Foods, the organic food chain started in, where else, Austin, Texas. The home of the cosmic cowboy. This mixture of cowboy and hippie intrigues me, like Mackey, the founder of Whole Foods, who blends liberal and conservative ideas. They tend to make both sides mad because they are not toeing either party line blindly. What I like about Obama now is the way he is making his own party mad, which suggests to me that he is not blindly toeing his own party line. Like Willie Nelson. Is he country, Jazz, folk, rock, hippie, cowboy? Who knows. As Professor Greenberg said about Beethoven. Beethoven isn’t like anything. He is just himself. There is nothing really to compare him to. Paumgarten writes, “Austin isn’t really Texas.” So is Willie Texas? Is George Bush? Who knows.

American Classic sounds a bit like all the tracks were emailed in separately. Diana Krall and Nora Jones don’t sound like they are in the studio with Willie while he is singing. That kinda ruins it for me. Nevertheless, Willie is all smiling and looking like he’ll live another 20 years on the cover of this album. He looks younger than he did on the cover of Spirit in 1996. “Ain’t Misbehavin’” is particularly strong. “On the Street Where You Live” is also good. This version of “Always on My Mind” gets worse each time I listen to it (I’m on my third listen today while cooking dinner). As I said before, it sounds like a Shakespeare sonnet with one of the words changed. When a sonnet is perfect, it snaps shut with a comforting sense of closure. Change a word, and you break that spell of wholeness. Willie already has a near-perfect version (or two) of this song, so any change of phrasing (which is usually Willie’s strong suit) actually works against him in this case. This won’t ever make my top ten, and probably not my top 30 or 40, but I’m glad to have it in my collection, if nothing else, for comparison purposes.