Live at the Texas Opry House (1974)

Recorded on June 29th and June 30th of 1974, this disc combines songs from both sets from the Saturday and Sunday concerts. Tracks 1-11 originally appeared on The Classic, Unreleased Collection (1993). It is one of three from The Complete Atlantic Recordings, which also includes Phases and Stages and Shotgun Willie. Interestingly, Willie turns 40 years old while working on this music, which is the age I have just reached myself. This concert may contain the best version of “Whiskey River,” the Johnny Bush song that Willie has made his signature song. This album also has the distinction of being one of two (the other is Red-Headed Stranger) that my wife will willingly listen to. “Whiskey River, take my mind” reinforces the introspective, contemplative theme I keep hearing in Willie’s music. Even in this most upbeat and dance-like of his tunes, he is talking about his mind. His mind, it seems, is always on his mind. Thinking about thinking. The cosmic cowboy was meta before meta was cool. The band is on fire in this concert, especially on “Truck Drivin’ Man.” Willie’s version of “She Thinks I Still Care” cannot compete with George Jones’s, but it’s better than James Taylor’s. Willie just can’t ever be as sad as George Jones. And when he tries to be sad, it isn’t believable because you know Willie can’t be that sad. He’s too Hakuna Matata. Johnny Gimble on fiddle plays my favorite solo on the Funny/Crazy/Night Life medley from set 1 of the Sunday show. After the solo, Willie says, “That’s just how I wrote it.” And that’s how perfect it sounds. Like a sonnet snapping shut. I will also be paying attention to Jimmy Day on steel guitar.

It occurs to me, listening to “Walkin’,” and it’s opening line—“After carefully considering…”—that one way to define Willie’s music is recklessness recollected in tranquility (with apologies to William Wordsworth). Who else can rebel by walking? It almost has a Gandhi-like quality to it. Thoreau, Tolstoy, Ruskin. With the exception of Ruskin, these were some rough characters, outlaws and rebels in their way, extremists, and yet they preached “civil” disobedience. Non-violent resistance. Willie does the same thing when he “breaks meter” by singing behind the beat, instead of racing ahead of it.

This collection is also notable for having alternate takes of several songs. It offers the listener the opportunity to compare multiple versions of the same songs (in some cases, three versions): one studio, one live, and one alternate take.

Willie sings, “After taking several readings, I’m surprised to find my mind still fairly sound” (in “Me and Paul”). The sound in his mind is sound? And then later, “After carefully considering…” Isn’t the definition of a free spirit, an outlaw, a rebel, someone who doesn’t carefully consider, someone who doesn’t carefully weigh the pros and cons, someone who doesn’t take several readings to find out which way the wind is blowing? And here we are with that paradox again. Willie clearly does both. He carefully considers and he is inconsiderate at the same time. How did art ever get associated with freedom? Any great artist is careful in that they care about words, or notes, or details. How can you take care and take risks at the same time? In the latest New Yorker Gilbert writes about her latest book about marriage. She says she is like an infant who can only sleep in a moving car. This reminded me of Willie hating Branson (“he now sings “Branson was the roughest” instead of “Nashville”) because he missed the bus. He missed being able to drive off every day and leave whatever messes you created behind and start anew. And yet, isn’t this the definition of infantile? The reasons infants can only sleep in moving cars or while being rocked or while sucking a pacifier is because they are not mature enough to calm themselves. Isn’t the definition of an adult one who can calm themselves? Although one might argue that adults simply replace their pacifiers with more sophisticated crutches or idols. Ariel Levy blasts Gilbert for wanting to have it both ways: freedom and commitment. And maybe that’s the defining paradox of Willie’s life and music, too. Can home really be on the road? Can we really escape the inertia of commitment or the gravity of time by always moving? I’m looking forward to Phases and Stages tomorrow, and missing the vinyl because with vinyl the woman’s view is on side A and the man’s perspective is on side B. With a CD or an MP3 you lose this nice physical distinction. Interestingly, sales of vinyl records are up. They are old enough that they are becoming hip again. People are starting to miss the physicality, I think, of the albums in sleeves with liner notes you can actually read without glasses. I wonder if it will happen to newspapers after they die, too. They will return as novelty items? Maybe it takes time for us to realize what we lost when we switched to the new technology.