One Hell of a Ride (disc 3 of 4)

Disc three of this set opens with three songs from the 1978 Willie and Family Live album. This version of “Whiskey River” rivals the 1974 Texas Opry House version, but I’d have to do a head-to-head comparison to say for sure which is stronger. The same goes for “Stay a Little Longer.” “Till I Gain Control” also appears on the album Take it to the Limit, but this live version takes “Take it to the Limit” to the next level. Willie sings (what Rodney Crowell has written):

I have never gone so wrong as for tellin’ lies to you.

What you’ve seen is what I’ve been.

There is nothin’ that I can hide from you.

You see me better than I can.

Out on the road that lies before me now

There are some turns where I will spin.

I only hope that you will hold me now

Till I can gain control again.

In the next verse he refers to her love as like a lighthouse that will guide him home after being lost at sea. He admits that she sees him better than he sees himself, and yet, by admitting this, he shows that he has an even greater awareness of himself, even if it is a Buddhist awareness of his lack of awareness. The tension between motion and stillness, the road and home, lost and found is everywhere in Willie’s music. Here we see it in the spinning out of control on the road, and then the desire for love to hold him in its arms till he can gain control. In a musical sense, we have Willie’s unpredictable vocal lines spinning out of control and then finding their way back to the meter, the lighthouse, home. Sound and sense become one. This song also contains some of Mickey Raphael’s finest work on harmonica. A life and a style of music that always seem on the verge of being out of control, and yet the method in the madness always quietly surfacing to bring it back home to sanity.

Then follows two tracks from One for the Road, which I have already reviewed, and a song from Willie Nelson Sings Kristofferson (also already reviewed). Greg Allman’s “Midnight Rider” from the 1979 album Music from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack The Electric Horseman is new to me. Willie sings, “I ain’t gonna let ‘em catch me, no I ain’t gonna let ‘em catch the midnight rider.” Always outrunning something or someone. “I’ve gone by the point of caring. Some old bed I’ll soon be sharing.” You hit the road because you don’t care about what’s behind you. If you cared, you’d stay. And yet we don’t really believe Willie. He does care. His songs are full of caring and sensitivity and crying. The paradox and riddle continues. Mickey’s harmonica is on fire as “This old road goes on forever.” How long is forever this time; how long is the road that goes on forever? Are the concepts of the road and time merging? The road is both time itself and an attempt to escape the limits of time. How can it be both? And yet it is.

Then follows tunes previously reviewed from San Antonio Rose, Honeysuckle Rose, and Somewhere Over the Rainbow. “Old Friends,” from the 1982 album of the same name ( with Roger Taylor and Ray Price), lets you hear Willie’s voice side by side with two of his most important mentors. Then two previously reviewed tunes from Pancho and Lefty. The Jimmie Rodgers tune “In the Jailhouse Now” from the album of the same name (with Webb Pierce), also lets you hear Willie sing with one of his mentors. Again, you hear Willie’s Western Swing background. Then previously reviewed songs from Take it to the Limit, City of New Orleans, and a Julio Iglesias album. This disc ends with two tunes from Willie’s 1984 album with Faron Young, Funny How Time Slips Away. This version of “Three Days” is not one of my favorites, but it does give you another insight into one of Willie’s mentors. You can hear the voice that sang many of Willie’s early songs and made them hits. Faron has an interesting yodel-like hitch to his voice. Sort of a cross between Ray Price and Hank Williams or Jimmie Rodgers. Johnny Gimble steals the show on fiddle. Same goes for this version of “Touch Me.” Buddy Emmons’ steel steals the show on this one.