Old Time Religion (1986)

This 1986 gospel album features Willie on guitar and vocals, Bobbie on piano, Bee Spears on bass, Freddy Fletcher on drums, and Mickey Raphael on harmonica. It opens with a bouncy, upbeat rendition of “Just a Little Walk with Jesus.” Mickey’s harmonica and Willie’s guitar work shine, but I can tell from the start that this won’t be as raw as Willie’s 1996 gospel album, “How Great Thou Art.” It will be interesting to compare Willie’s four gospel albums side by side. “I’d Rather Have Jesus” is a more melancholy gospel tune, but Willie strains to hit some of the higher notes. Bobbie’s piano meanders along searchingly with Mickey’s harmonica. “I’d rather have Jesus than world wide fame; I’d rather be true to his holy name, than to be a king of a vast domain, or be held in sin’s dread sway; I’d rather have Jesus than anything this world affords today.” I wonder at what level Willie means this song. “Where the Soul Never Dies” clearly appeals to Willie’s desire to capture time. This may be the first song I have heard where Willie is singing harmony with himself. He should do this more often. Willie’s obsession with time slipping away should lead him naturally to the gospel focus on eternity. I’ll need to think more about the connections between Willie’s obsession with “always” and “forever” in his secular songs and his gospel albums focused on eternity. In “The Lily of the Valley” Willie claims, “He all my grief has taken and all my sorrows born.” It is interesting to look at that verse side by side with some of Willie’s crying songs. What can it mean if Jesus has taken all Willie’s grief and born all his sorrows? What then of his many tears? Again I’m mindful of connections between “I’ll Fly Away” and “On the Road Again.” I’m fond of this version of “I’ll Fly Away.” Again, Willie appears to be singing harmony with himself, which I love. He should experiment more with that. In “Are You Washed in the Blood” Willie clearly pronounces “washed” as “warshed.” Every once in awhile you hear a revealing pronunciation like that in one of his songs. In so many ways Willie is an everyman, a transcender of genres and labels and accents, but at times his parochialism, his locality, his Arkansas/Texas roots show through. I hear Willie’s vocals on harmonies again on this track. Another very accomplished gospel performance, but not as tender and moving as the tracks on “How Great Thou Art.” “Where He Leads Me” clocks in at 5:06, the longest track on this album. “I’ll go with him through the garden. I’ll go with him all the way. Where he leads me I will follow.” What a different way to hit the road. The way the disciples hit the road, dropped everything to follow Jesus, as opposed to dropping everything to hit the road for the sake of the road. Movement for the sake of movement. Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road.” Or Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road.” Willie seems to have followed no one in his life. He has been such an individual. It is hard to picture him being led, being a follower. “Old Time Religion” is another bouncy, up-tempo romp of a gospel tune. Very pleasant but less angsty and tortured than “Spirit” or “How Great Thou Art.” 1986 is pre-IRS troubles, and maybe this is a gospel album when things were going well for Willie (the mountain top), and 1996 was a gospel album from the valley. “Revive Us Again” also hearkens back to a past experience, a memory of when times were better, when our walk with Jesus was closer. In Remembrance of Things Past could be seen as a gospel novel, a secular revival. “Sweet Bye & Bye” and “When We All Get to Heaven” both contribute to the theme of time, the past, the future, memory, eternity. Whether it is a secular album or a spiritual one, Willie is always looking forward or looking back, or looking forward to looking back. Sweet memories or sweet bye and bye. “In the sweet bye and bye we shall meet on that beautiful shore.” When, when, when? That is Willie’s perpetual question. “When We All Get to Heaven.” I went back and listened to some of “Gospel Favorites” from 1980, and that one’s growing on me. I found it a bit rough the first time around, and my wife almost made me move out when I started playing it in the kitchen. Looking back I see that my blog on that album from February was lame. I think I need to give that album a more thorough listen and song-by-song treatment, in light of his other gospel albums, including The Troublemaker. I also went back and listened to “Spirit” today. Still my number one Willie album if I have to pick one. Have I mentioned the most profound criticism to date of Willie’s work? My son said the other day about a version of one of Willie’s songs: “I don’t like this version as much, or maybe I like it better.” Only Willie could provoke such a reaction. Sometimes you can’t tell if you like it more or less. I love that.

How Great Thou Art (1996)

This 1996 gospel album features Willie on vocals and guitar, Bobbie on piano, and Jon Blondell on bass. Bobbie appears to be playing an organ on the title track, “How Great Thou Art.” This gospel album seems a bit more heartfelt and serious than some of his others. It doesn’t sound like Willie is just going through the gospel motions. He seems to mean these songs. “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” swings, as it should. The duet between sister and brother, piano and vocals, makes for a pleasingly distilled and paired down performance. Willie’s in no hurry on these songs, with a 6:59 “Closer Walk with Thee” and three other tracks over 5 minutes long. Willie even lets Jon solo on the bass toward the end of “Swing Low.” It is interesting to look at my list of favorite Willie records and notice that so many come from the 1990s:

Storytellers (1998)

Spirit (1996)

Who’ll Buy My Memories (1991)

Teatro (1998)

Me and the Drummer (2000)

Night and Day (1999)

How Great Thou Art (1996)

I wonder what it was about the 1990s that brought out the best in Willie’s music (for me at least). Was it the trouble with the IRS? The sense of loss? The emotions just seem closer to the bone, more like the demo tapes. Willie takes it nice and slow on “It is No Secret,” and “Kneel at the Feet of Jesus” seems to include a bit of Trigger along with Bobbie’s piano. This is no throwaway gospel album. It should be better known. Willie’s “Just as I Am” rises above the familiarity of the tune. His “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” stretches to almost seven minutes. Bobbie’s piano seems more melancholy than I have ever heard it. Willie slows it down by singing behind the beat, jazzing it up even on a gospel album. “Farther Along” may be my favorite on this album. This album has the same authentic spiritual vibe as Willie’s 1996 “Spirit” album. And Bobbie is clearly feeling it, too. Willie stretches out the beat, the meter, the notes farther and farther along in the song. You have a Bach-like, Baroque sense of striving for something ineffable in the guitar and piano and vocals. It is no easy feat to make “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” sound fresh and new, like Willie wrote it, but that’s just what he does. He ends with “In the Garden,” and his voice strolls along like he is walking with God in the Garden. This album has a presence, a seriousness, a gravity that seems to be found in a more concentrated fashion in Willie’s recordings from the 1990s. Add this to my untenable top ten.

Live Country Music Concert (1966)

Here’s another album where I don’t need to say much except “Buy it.” I haven’t found it anywhere (used or otherwise) on CD or vinyl, but you can get it from ITUNES for $9.99. You don’t get the personnel information, but Willie tells you in the intro to the first song that Johnny Bush (drums) and Wade Ray are in the band. Willie opens with a 7:19 medley of “Record Man,” “Hello Walls,” and “One Day at a Time.” This 1966 concert was recorded at Panther Hall in Ft. Worth, Texas. For such an old recording, the sound is phenomenal. Track two contains both “The Last Letter” and “Half a Man.” This may be the best version of “The Last Letter.” In terms of the band, all I hear is drums and guitar. Not sure what Wade Ray is playing, unless he is on guitar and Willie is just singing. I don’t hear two guitars (maybe Willie’s on acoustic and Wade Ray is on electric?). Willie’s vocals on “I Never Cared for You” are exceptional. Willie recorded the Beatles’ “Yesterday” on his 1987 album “Seashores of Old Mexico,” but it is interesting to hear him do it live in 1966. The lyrics strike me as even more poignant and apropos having listened to so many more of his songs that have to do with the concept of time, today, tomorrow, and yesterday. If nothing else, Willie believes in yesterday. Most people put their hope in tomorrow; they store their treasures up for the future, but Willie makes deposits in memory’s bank. His hope and faith is in the past, in yesterday. “Suddenly, I’m not half the man I used to be…Why she had to go, I don’t know, she wouldn’t say. I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday. Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play…” Willie longs for yesterday the way most people long for tomorrow. He always feels like merely “Half a man” in the present. Half of him is always in the past. He feels more whole in the past, in his mind, in his memory. Willie states that he wrote “Something to Think About” three days before this concert, and this may be his very best version of this song, so close to the moment of inspiration, so close to the bone, the emotion. I’m really left speechless by these versions. They can’t really be improved upon. Only listened to. Every song is a 4 or 5-star performance. The backing is as spare and raw as you can get. This could be my favorite version of “Night Life,” and that’s saying something, since I have over a dozen versions. I still prefer the demo version of “Opportunity to Cry,” but this may be a close second, and then it morphs into a version of “Permanently Lonely.” A nice combination. I’m struck by how slow and quiet these songs are. What are the drunks in the bar thinking while listening to this stuff? They’re yelling periodically in the background, but how do you yell “Yee-Haw!” in the middle of some of these delicate, tender, mournful ballads? Willie closes out this set with one of his best versions of “My Own Peculiar Way.” Do I need to even mention that this makes my untenable top ten?

Good Times (1968)

Okay, so I couldn’t wait any longer. I broke down and started ordering albums off of ITUNES. I won’t have any liner notes to give me personnel, but it’s the only way I can get my hands on early albums like 1968’s “Good Times.” I have heard the title track previously on “One Hell of a Ride” and “The Essential Willie Nelson.” I think this is a new (to my ears) version of “December Day.” I now have four or five versions of this song, and this is one of my favorites, though they are all strong. This version of “Sweet Memories” also appears on “One Hell of a Ride” and “Sweet Memories.” See my reviews on the blogs for those albums. Ditto for this version of “Little Things.” I’m seeing a pattern here. Same songs on “One Hell of a Ride,” “Sweet Memories,” and “Good Times.” This version of “Pages” appears on “The Ghost” (part 2). The fact that four of the first five tracks on this album have all been included in various compilations suggests that this is one of Willie’s stronger albums from the 1960s. “She’s Still Gone” is completely new to me. Reminds me of one of my favorite country lines: “Is it still over, are we still through? If my phone still ain’t ringin’, I assume it still ain’t you.” This is a wonderfully spare, mostly acoustic album with prominent vocals. I spoke to soon. Track six is a syrupy arrangement with strings and cheesy back-up vocals which also appears on “The Ghost” (Part 3). “A Wonderful Yesterday” appears to be a new song for my ears. The arrangement cloys like the previous track, but the lyrics make a nice addition to Willie’s canon. “Today’s gonna make a wonderful yesterday.” Most people look forward to the future, but Willie looks forward to the past. He sees ahead to how today will look when it’s gone and he’s looking back at it. It’s almost as if he has a rearview mirror that can see object as they will appear once you have past them. Willie, like Proust and Gatsby, prefer’s things in the past, where he can control them and idealize them. Staying on the road allows him to put everything in the past immediately. It’s almost like he is greedy for memories the way Beowulf was greedy for fame. Beowulf was greedy to be remembered, but Willie is greedy to remember. He pockets the past, hoards history, the way a miser (or a dragon) hoards gold. “Today we have made a thousand and one memories, that we can recall when today is a sweet used-to-be.” This is a new (to me) version of “Permanently Lonely,” but of the four I have, this is by far my least favorite. The versions on “Crazy: The Demo Sessions,” “Always on My Mind,” and “Who’ll Buy My Memories” are far superior. “Down to Our Last Goodbye” is also new to me. “Now all that’s left for me is just the memory of all those happy days gone by.” That’s all? What more could Willie want? A million wonderful yesterdays should be enough. This version of “Buddy” also appears on “Sweet Memories,” but I much prefer the version on “Who’ll Buy My Memories.” “Did I Ever Love You” is new to me. “Did I ever really care. All the times that I cried for you, did I really want you there. Wiser men than I have wondered about love and never knew…All the nights that I spent cryin’, …was it my imagination, was it only in my mind?” This could be Gatsby talking to Daisy. Love is all in your head, a fiction, but a beautiful fiction that may be better than the real thing (see Petrarch, Dante, Don Quixote, et. al.). “Is it here today and gone tomorrow, this love that no one can explain?” So, the moral of this album is, half the songs are on other compilations (the best songs), and the ones that aren’t on the compilations are the ones with treacly arrangements. You still have to buy this album, though, to hear the lyrics to some of the songs that don’t appears elsewhere. For $9.99 on ITUNES, it’s worth it.

Legends of the Grand Ole Opry: Willie Nelson Singing His Hits Live (1964-1967)

Legends of the Grand Ole Opry: Willie Nelson Singing His Hits Live (1964-1967)

There isn’t much for me to say about this album except “Buy it!” The liner notes by Colin Escott are informative, but they say next to nothing about the personnel on these live recordings. The only bit of information I could glean is that Jimmy Day is on steel and Wade Ray on fiddle. I can’t believe these recordings aren’t better known and don’t appear on any of the major compilations. This album may be the best hidden gem find of the year. Willie’s vocals are as good as they get, and the backing is spare. A touch of drums, steel, bass, and fiddle with the vocals front and center. This album also captures Willie’s sound at an important juncture in his career: 1964-1967. “Part Where I Cry” sounds like it could be on one of his early demo sessions. It ranks up there with that raw performance of “Opportunity to Cry” on “Crazy: The Demo Sessions.” Willie acknowledges David Parker on guitar on “I Never Cared for You.” Later Willie states that Perry Como recently recorded “My Own Peculiar Way,” but Perry couldn’t sing it like this. This album features several five-star versions of classic Willie songs: “Family Bible,” “Funny How Time Slips Away,” and “Healing Hands of Time.” Wade Ray’s fiddle solo on “There’ll Be No Teardrops Tonight” ranks with the best of Johnny Gimble’s solos. This version of “Healing Hands of Time” may be Willie’s best. Ditto for this version of “One Day at a Time.” Again, I have already commented on the lyrics for each of these songs in previous blogs, and I have already said that many of these live versions may very well be Willie’s best takes, so there isn’t much else to say. “She’s Not for You” also sounds like a demo cut. Out of the hundred or so albums I have reviewed, I can’t think of another album that gets as close to the raw Willie sound as this and “Crazy: The Demo Sessions.” I knew this album would make my Untenable Top Ten as soon as I heard the first track. Speaking of my Untenable Top Ten, it has now reached 30:

Untenable Top Ten

Crazy: The Demo Sessions

Stardust (1978)

Storytellers (1998)

Spirit (1996)

Who’ll Buy My Memories (1991)

Yesterday’s Wine (1971)

Teatro (1998)

Red-Headed Stranger (1975)

Me and the Drummer (2000)

Night and Day (1999)

Honeysuckle Rose (1980)

The Sound in Your Mind (1976)

Last of the Breed (2007)

To Lefty From Willie (1977)

Willie and Ray (2005)

Healing Hands of Time (1994)

The Great Divide (2002)

The Early Years (2 cds)

The Ghost (3 cds)

One Hell of a Ride (4 cds)

Born for Trouble (1990)

Moment of Forever (2008)

The Promiseland (1986)

Willie and Family Live (1978)

Tougher Than Leather (1983)

Country Music (2010)

It Always Will Be

Singin’ with Willie (2004)

Old Friends (1982)

Legends of the Grand Ole Opry: Willie Nelson Singing His Hits Live (1964-1967)

Nite Life: Greatest Hits and Rare Tracks (1959-1971)

This album contains a lot of tracks I have already reviewed. 1959’s “Man with the Blues” can also be found on the compilation “One Hell of a Ride.” The liner notes (by Rich Kienzle), though, are very thorough and actually provide the personnel for each track. Willie also has versions of this song on his 2010 “Country Music” and a duet with Buckwheat Zydeco on “Singin’ with Willie.” This 1960 version of “What a Way to Live” is also on “The Ghost” (Part III). The only other version I have is on “Me and the Drummer.” This 1959 version of “Night Life” is the only one to be spelled “Nite Life,” and it also appears on the compilation “One Hell of a Ride.” This 1959 version of “Rainy Day Blues” appears on “The Ghost” and on “The Complete Liberty Recordings.” Each mix is slightly different, though, and I think I prefer the “Early Years” version because the vocals are cleaner and more prominent. This unreleased version of “You’ll Always Have Someone” also appears on “Love and Pain,” but the mix on this version is superior. The only other version I have is on “The Winning Hand,” which sounds like a newer version. I wish Willie sang this more often. This unreleased version of “Everything But You” also appears on “The Ghost (part 2)” and “Face of a Fighter,” but I find the mix superior on this album. This 1961 version of “Mr. Record Man” also appears on “The Early Years,” which has a superior mix. Tracks 10-14 are all Liberty recordings, so they all appear on “The Early Years.” This 1966 version of “San Antonio Rose” seems different from the one on “Country Favorites,” so this may be the only place you can find this gem, unless you have the original single for which this was the B side. This 1966 version of “One in a Row” is also on “One Hell of a Ride.” This 1968 version of “Bring Me Sunshine” is also on “One Hell of a Ride” and, in a more stripped-down form, on “Naked Willie.” This 1971 version of “Me and Paul” is the same one that appears on “Yesterday’s Wine” and countless compilations. So, the moral of this story is: buy “One Hell of a Ride,” “The Complete Ghost,” and “The Early Years: The Complete Liberty Recordings,” and skip this compilation. The only reason to buy this would be for the one version of “San Antonio Rose,” which I haven’t found anywhere else. That said, the mix for some of these songs may be better on this album, so you might want it if you are looking for the best mix of a particular recording.

Face of a Fighter (2004)

The liner notes don’t give me much on this album except to say that these recordings are from the early 1960s, but I dug up a review from Chet Flippo which states:

“Face of a Fighter is a gem: stark vocals and clean production of some of Nelson's earliest and least-known compositions. Though these songs were once released as part of Double Barrel's Willie Nelson 1961, that LP probably sold about 4000 copies in Austin and suburbs. The title tune is terrific ("Mine is the face of a fighter/But my heart has just lost the fight"), but the real treasure here is "The Shelter of Your Arms," written when the artist was (for him) still fairly optimistic. Some of the lines are: "If I die while I'm asleep/I pray my dreams He'll let me keep/And carry me through eternity/In the shelter of your arms." Very sweet and very untypical of Nelson's bitter songs. All he asks here is that, when he dies tonight, God will at least grant him the fantasy of being eternally happy with you (since you're the only one who hasn't been a lying, cheating bitch)."

After checking the song titles in my ITUNES collection I have determined that all 14 tracks from Face of a Fighter are included in the three-cd Complete Ghost series (which I have already reviewed). This is a cheaper, more concise collection, but you are obviously better off getting the Ghost instead of this. I think I’ll use my normal writing time to search for those hard-to-find albums that continue to elude my grasp.

Funny How Time Slips Away (1985)

Fred Foster produced this second LP from the 2004 Koch Records re-release CD. The studio remains the same—Pedernales—but the lineup is considerably different. Emmons on steel and Gimble on fiddle are the only carryovers from Old Friends. This version of Willie’s “Three Days” will not make my top three of his recordings of this song, but it is good to hear another mentor of Willie sing his songs, especially since Faron Young basically made Willie’s career by taking his first hits to #1 (“Hello Walls”). Willie’s vocals and Gimble’s fiddle are as good as they get, but the song is dominated by Faron Young’s vocals. “Touch Me” opens with a starker more acoustic setting. You can hear on this track how Faron wrung the tears out of Willie’s mournful early songs. Faron Young has a bit of George Jones in him. Willie’s “Congratulations” is new to me. “If you started out to make a fool of me, congratulations to you, dear, you’re doin’ fine…You should be commended for the sorrow you caused me. How does it feel to be the queen of misery.” The wry tone of “commended” reminds me of “ain’t it funny how time slips away” and “would you mind too much if I don’t understand.” That subtle understatement that says so much. Willie seems to respect someone who can cause him pain. He dishes it out, so he respects someone who can dish it back. He’s a man of the blues, a connoisseur of hurting and pain and tears. An aficionado of affliction, if you will. This may actually be one of the better versions of “Half a Man,” which is one of my all-time favorite Willie songs. This one could make your roof leak it’s so sad. This band is small and stays in the background so the vocals can stay front and center. Gimble’s fiddle steals the show in the middle of this song. I once had a heart, but now I have a fiddle, or some steel. Faron Shows a little Elvis in this version of “Hello Walls.” It’s not one of my favorite versions, but you have to listen to it to appreciate the distinctions between Willie’s and Faron’s vocal styles. “She’s Not for You” starts out stark with just guitar and Willie’s voice. This could be one of the best versions of this song. Not sure where Faron Young is on this one. It’s more of a duet between Gimble’s fiddle and Willie’s voice. Joe Allison’s up-tempo romp “Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young” describes Faron Young’s philosophy, which Willie obviously adopted. The idea is to “Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young…And leave a beautiful memory.” This is a far cry from “Brand on My Heart.” What kind of “beautiful memory” can you leave when you have shotgun, hit-and-run romances on the road with countless women? In what sense are these memories “beautiful” or “indelible.” Surely not the “Brands” that get burned into Willie’s heart on his previous song. Nevertheless, Faron maintains that he wants to “leave a lot of happy women thinking well of me…don’t ever think you’re gonna tie me down…I’m gonna stay footloose and fancy free.” Not sure how “fancy free” and memory relates. He seems to want to leave a wake of memories, traces of permanence, like the jet wash green glow of the light at the end of Daisy’s dock. D. Gibson’s “Sweet Dreams” should not be confused with “Sweet Memories,” though the content is similar. “Why can’t I forget the past, start lovin’ someone new, instead of havin’ sweet dreams about you.” Faron sounds a bit like Roy Orbison, too. Willie’s either trying to restore or erase the past, and this is a standard “can’t-forget-the-past-no-matter-how-hard-I-try” song. Jerry Chestnut’s “Four in the Morning” “Just woke up the wanting in me.” Faron sings this one without Willie. Harlan Howard’s “Life Made Her That Way” is one of those “too true for Nashville” songs Willie and his crew were famous for. “She’s been walked on and stepped on so many times, and I hate to admit it, but that last footprint’s mine. She was crying when I met her. She cries harder today.” Ouch. Willie knows about karma. He doesn’t blame people. He knows what it’s like. He’s been on both sides so many times. “Going Steady” is a fun Faron Young-penned song. “All you rambler’s leave her alone, don’t even date her on the phone.” Faron and Willie singing about going steady seems like the ultimate irony. There is nothing steady about the road. The road is the embodiment of unsteadiness. And yet the desire for steadiness rears its head from time to time. Faron put “Funny How Time Slips Away” on the map, but there are now so many better versions of this song. Elvis, Dave Matthews, you name it. It’s still good to hear Faron do it. He puts everything he has into this one. I never get tired of this song. If I have to pick one Willie song, this is probably it. Willie does some funny things with the phrasing on this version that make it worth re-visiting. This is a very solid album, and the two-LP CD is well worth the investment.

Old Friends (1982)

Here we have another two-LP set on one CD put out by Koch Records. The first LP is Willie’s duet album with Roger Miller. It contains a mix of solo performances by Roger and Willie and a few duets (one of which includes Ray Price, who was a mentor to both men). According to Rich Kienzle’s excellent liner notes, Willie was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1983, but rather than focus on his own career, he helped revive the careers of his mentors—Roger Miller and Faron Young. This album was produced by Willie, Roger, and Chips Moman at Willie’s Pedernales studio in Spicewood, Texas. It features Willie’s standard family band sans Bobbie plus Johnny Gimble (fiddle) and Jimmy Day (steel). The title track, Miller’s “Old Friends,” is a touching tribute (reminds me a but of Paul Simon’s “Old Friends”) that is even more moving because Ray Price joins Willie and Roger. This track went to #19 on the country charts. Willie and Roger join forces on Roger’s 1966 hit “Husbands and Wives,” a mournful lament about the troubled institution of marriage, with a guitar solo that I assume is Trigger. No harmonica player is listed, but I’m guessing it’s Mickey Raphael. Miller identifies pride as the chief cause of the decline in number of husbands and wives. A quiet, moving song with tender fiddle and piano work. Willie tackle’s Miller’s “Half a Mind” solo. Willie has “half a mind to leave you, but only half the heart to go.” Willie is either of a double mind or of half a mind. Half a man, half a mind, and half hearted. He is paradoxically divided. The Jekyll-Hyde duality of the human condition torments him. You were always on half of my mind might be a truer song. Willie also sings Miller’s “The Best I Can Give Her” solo. He remembers having “once promised the world to a ribbon-haired girl.” But it’s funny how time slipped away, and his promise wasn’t worth much. “Pretty dreams, happy dreams, how they wither.” He’s “ashamed, but it’s the best [he} can give her.” This makes my untenable top ten already. Roger sings one to Willie, “Sorry Willie.” “What’s wrong, Willie, why are you crying…Sorry, Willie, I didn’t know you didn’t know.” “Don’t ask how I know her, I might have to lie.” Here is the ultimate cheatin’ song from one cheater to another. Can we believe any aspect of this apology? A cheater apologizing to a cheater for cheating? Roger supposedly was fooling around with Willie’s wife. Then Willie sings Miller’s “When a House is Not a Home.” You can see where Willie got all his house song ideas. A house is not a home without love. This album is Red Headed Stranger-esque. Same pure, clean, tender songs and a spare acoustic setting. You can hear how torn Willie’s heart is. “That’s how it is when your house is not a home.” But what about when you’re on the road? Is that a home.” Roger sings his fun romping blues called “Aladambama.” Mickey’s harmonica gets involved. Roger scats like the King of the Road, like Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis. Willie and Roger team up for “Invitation to the Blues,” which sounds eerily like some other Willie-penned song (“I’m the Man with the Blues”?). The band for this album and the last two LPs I reviewed may be one of Willie’s best. 1982 is a vintage year for Willie’s voice and his band. Willie’s solo version of “When Two World’s Collide” ranks with Willie’s best ballads. The combination of his voice with Gimble’s fiddle, Raphael’s harmonica, and Johnny Day’s steel make this a 5-star recording. Ditto for Willie’s solo rendition of Miller’s “I’ll Pick Up My Heart (and Go Home),” which reads: “Once again, you’ve got me crying. I’m a fool if I let this go on. You can hurt me without even trying…I can see the first scenes of autumn…suddenly I feel so forgotten…I think I’ll pick up my heart and go home…somewhere where you’ll never find me. Somewhere I can leave all my troubles behind me.” Willie learned to cry from Miller, and the wry tone of “Pick Up My Heart and Go Home” reminds me of the tone of “Funny How Time Slips Away.” It also reminds me of a more recent haunting ballad (on Teatro?) (“Pick Up the Pieces”). This album is another hidden gem that belongs on the shelf with Willie’s best. I will revisit it often with pleasure.

Brand on My Heart (1985)

The second album included in this two-LP CD was produced by Chips Moman and recorded in November 1984 in Spicewood, Texas. It is a duet album with Hank Snow which also features the hauntingly beautiful fiddle work of Johnny Gimble. The album opens with a Hank Snow-penned up-tempo train song, “Golden Rocket.” Willie has “another true love waiting in Tennessee.” Another case of hitting the road chasing after that elusive perfect love. Mickey Raphael’s harmonica, of course, drives the train throughout the song. This version of Geoff Mack’s “I’ve Been Everywhere” does not offer much of a threat to Johnny Cash’s definitive rendition. Not sure why anyone would even attempt it after Cash did (though I don’t know the date of when Johnny recorded it, so maybe this came first). Willie’s banter with Hank at the end of the song makes the whole track worth it, though. I am impressed that anyone can simply sing the lyrics of this song with all the crazy place names. This album hits its stride with Ivory Joe Hunter’s “I Almost Lost My Mind.” It’s a funky, bluesy number with lyrics that revisit Willie’s favorite theme: “When I lost my baby, I almost lost my mind. My head is in a spin since she left me behind.” Willie’s love is usually in his mind, so losing his love and losing his mind would be one and the same. That said, he usually saves his love in his head when he loses his physical love, so it is odd that he would lose them both at the same time like this. His love is always on his mind, so losing love outside the platonic ideal of his mind is usually not that big of a deal. I probably shouldn’t like Mitchell Torok’s kitschy “Caribbean,” but I do, so sue me. It’s a fun up-tempo romantic romp. Willie refers to Christopher Columbus as Chris. I thought he was talking about Kristofferson at first. Only Willie calls Columbus Chris. Hank’s “Brand on My Heart” perfectly illustrates Willie’s theory about the permanence of love in the memory. “And left as a memory your brand on my heart.” You say I’ll “find someone to love me someday…but, darlin’, that someone can only be you.” Once again, Willie claims to be faithful and true forever even though his love has left him. Of course, in the next song Willie sings Hank’s “I’m Movin’ On.” Someone is always leavin’ someone in these songs. Love is never at rest. Like Einstein’s theory of relativity, love is either coming or going. The stable world of Newtonian mechanics never applies. Sometimes Willie claims that he will stay true no matter what his loves does, but here he claims he will simply move on. Hakuna Matata. Hank Locklin’s “Send Me the Pillow You Dream On” continues the theme that Willie still cares. Hank sounds like Dylan, and Gimble’s fiddle shines on this track. It’s a classic melancholy honky tonk song with weeping steel, fiddle, and harmonica. “I Don’t Hurt Anymore” has Willie protesting too much again. Claiming he doesn’t care anymore. The second biggest lie after “I’ll love you forever” is “I don’t care if you don’t love me anymore.” Willie claims, “all my teardrops are dry. No more walking the floor with that burning inside,” but we don’t believe him. If you have to sing a sad song about it, you still care. “No use to deny that I wanted to die the day you said we were through.” “I’ve forgotten somehow that I cared so before. And it’s wonderful now. I don’t hurt anymore.” “Now that I find you’re out of my mind.” So you’re always on my mind, until of course you’re out of my mind? This song tries to undercut every one of Willie’s Proustian preservative songs that strive to keep love alive in his mind. He’s always trying to remember, except when he wants to forget. Make up your mind, Willie. It’s foolish, of course. Love. He admits as much with “A Fool Such as I.” “Don’t be angry with me should I cry.” “You taught me how to love and now you say that we are through.” Now he insists that he will love her, foolishly, till the day he dies, even though she says they’re through. “Now and then there’s a fool such as I am over you.” “Now and then” gets at the issue of time and love. We are fools about the past and the future. Fools for love, and time’s fool. Though Shakespeare claims “love’s not time’s fool,” maybe it is. I must consult Shakespeare’s sonnets, and especially “Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds Admit Impediments.” The marriage of minds, and the impediments. That sums up Willie’s world and music. Again, he claims, “It Makes No Difference,” when indeed it does. “I’ll get along without you…I’ll get by somehow…I don’t worry because it makes no difference now.” Yeah, right. “I thought you loved me, too.” “That’s all in the past and I’ll forget somehow.” Really? Proust? Gatsby? I don’t think so. Forget that brand in your heart? How do you forget a brand? “I don’t blame myself and I’m sure I don’t blame you.” “I don’t worry”? Except in every song for my whole career. Worry, worry, worry. Willie is both the most and least worried man in show business. How he can be both to the nth degree baffles me, but there it is. He cries forever and never cries again at the same time. He somehow lives two lives simultaneously. And that may be the definition of living life to its fullest. Maybe that’s why he loves duets so much. He is attracted to the dialogic, the dual, the paradoxical. He wants to have everything both ways. Maybe that’s why I own both of these paradoxical albums and why you should, too.

In the Jailhouse Now (1982)

This 2000 re-mastered and re-issued CD features two hard-to-find LPs on one CD. This is a great find and a great bargain if you can get your hands on it. I wish someone would release all of Willie’s old LPs in this fashion so I could gobble them up two at a time in CD format. Till then, I’m left to watch the EBAY auctions for those hard-to-find LPs. I’ll start with his duet album with Webb Pierce, In the Jailhouse Now.

The liner notes state that this album was recorded on June 8 and 9, 1981 in Spicewood, Texas, engineered by Chips Moman. The band is basically the full family band minus Bobbie. In addition, Leon Russell, Johnny Gimble, and Chips Moman chip in. Jimmy Day is on steel. On paper, this is one of the best lineups for a Willie album. The album opens with “There Stands the Glass,” which fits nicely into Willie’s repertoire of songs that strive to deal with pain and loss by numbing it with booze. I’ve only heard the title track, “In the Jailhouse Now,” before on a previously-reviewed compilation, so I haven’t heard Willie sing with Webb much. It is always good to hear him sing with one of his mentors, as it gives one insight into Willie’s musical influences. When he sings, “I wonder if you think of me in my misery,” he hearkens back to the many songs where he is obsessed with what she’s thinking. Half the time he’s obsessing about his own thinking, the sound of his own mind, and yet the other half of the time he is thinking about what she’s thinking. Thinking about thinking. Willie was meta before meta was cool. He’s been post-modern since the 1950s. Thinking about thinking about thinking. Always on his own mind, always self-referential, always out-Hamleting Hamlet. The band and vocals are tight. Webb Pierce’s voice has a nice bite to it, like a complex pale ale. Any album featuring Johnny Gimble on fiddle is worth buying. Joe Werner’s “Wondering” is a repeat of the previous song, same song second verse. “I keep wondering, yes wondering, if you’re wondering too.” And the fiddle and steel wander in and out of Willie and Webb’s wondering. “Wondering, wondering who’s kissing you.” Could be Gatsby wondering about Tom and Daisy. Or Proust wondering about Odette. The title track, “In the Jailhouse Now,” is a fun romp of a song by Jimmie Rodgers. It fits with Willie’s on the road philosophy. Webb Pierce’s “You’re Not Mine Anymore” is another one of Willie’s “I hope you change your mind songs.” Another, I’ll be true forever and love you forever songs, just waiting for you to come to your senses and love me again. “Since the day you said we’re through I’ve been even more in love with you.” My love never changes in the face of your fickleness. It’s the flip side of “Funny How Time Slips Away.” You promise to love me forever, and then you don’t, so after you leave me, I promise that I will love you forever even after you have dumped me. Which is the bigger lie, the bigger illusion? Which is funnier? The lies we tell before love, in the heat of love, or after love? Or are they all equally laughable? Willie and Web co-wrote “Heebie Jeebie Blues.” “You got the right string but the wrong yo-yo” may be my favorite line in recent memory. Mickey’s harmonica makes a nice run on this track. “I gotta get on the move…something just keeps pullin’ me down the other way.” What is it that pulls Willie down the road, away from commitments and relationships? And how is this pull related to the blues? Webb Pierce’s “Slowly” is just a simple but touching country ballad, and Mickey and Willie and Jimmy Day shine on harmonica, vocals, and steel respectively. Webb and Cindy Walker’s “I Don’t Care” hits on Willie’s obsession with the past: “Yesterday’s gone, love me from now on, they treated me, forget about the past” [honestly, I couldn’t make these lyrics out and need to check them later]. Here Willie is willing to wipe the slate clean, forget the past, and focus exclusively on the Platonic ideal of the future, the only place a love can be perfect, the frozen past (that never really was) or the tantalizingly elusive future (that never will be). Billy Wallace’s “Back Street Affair” seems to suggest that Willie has been falsely judged for fooling around. His woman was fooling around first, so it’s okay for him to cheat. “We have each other now, that’s all that matters anyhow.” “The happiness then we hoped for” will someday come true, and it won’t be merely a backstreet affair, it won’t merely be a one-night stand, an on-the-road kind of relationship. Here Willie wants to have it both ways. The thrill of the cheating with the permanence of the legitimate relationship. In other words, someday our cheating won’t be cheating. Someday we won’t have to cheat. Won’t that be nice when that day comes, but it never does. Or if it does, then we end up cheating on each other. “If you should ever find that you don’t love me, darlin’”…“Let Me Be the First to Know.” If you change your mind, if you feel like cheating, let me know. But who does this? How can he expect such honesty in love? How can we expect people to tell us when they are about to lie, tell us the truth about their lies? So it’s okay to lie if you tell the truth about it? He spends so many songs promising love and then being disappointed with lies, and it seems love is built on a lie. And yet here he wants a lover who will promise to tell him when her love ceases. A strange promise indeed. Instead of promising to be faithful and true, just promise not to lie when your love inevitably fades. It seems to be rather a lowering of the stakes and expectations of love, and yet it is no less unrealistic. Another foolish seeking for perfect honesty and truth in a world of cheating. The ultimate irony that the singers and authors of cheating songs are always searching for perfect honesty. Webb’s “More and More” states, “more and more, I’m forgetting the past…day by day, I’m losing my blues, more and more I’m forgetting about you,” though “oh how I cried the day you said goodbye.” Willie ends with a classic “forgetting song.” I’ll forget about you, I’ll forget the past. The blues will fade in my rearview mirror. This stands in stark contrast to all the songs about how I’ll never forget. So which is? I’ll get over you or I’ll never get over you? Or can it be both? Can we have it both ways on the same album? Every 2 ½ minutes are different. All in all, one of Willie’s best bands singing simple cheatin’ songs with another country legend. May not quite make my untenable top ten, but it’s darn close and well worth buying.

Partners (1986)

I read recently that Willie has averaged one album per year over the course of his 50+ year career, but it seems like he came out with ten a year in the late 1980’s. Some of these 1980’s releases should come with warning labels like those rap albums with red stickers proclaiming “Explicit Lyrics.” Willie’s would read: “warning, syrupy strings included.” This album features regulars Mickey Raphael and Bobby Emmons, but I just can’t get past the strings. Johnny Gimble saves a few tracks with his fiddle, and the curiosity and audacity of attempting Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” makes this album intriguing. Willie sings about “the night I promised you the moon,” promised you I’d love you forever. But he worries that “Now and then stars are known to fall, and I need to know that we’re still partners after all.” Funny to hear Willie looking for such reassurance of faithfulness. Funny how people make promises. Less funny how they break them. In “When I Dream” Willie laments that he has everything in the world, but when he dreams, he dreams of this woman. He has everything that money can buy, but not that perfectly true relationship. That remains the elusive dream that money cannot buy. He “can be the singer or the clown in every room…[he] can put [his] makeup on and drive the crowds insane…[he] can go to bed alone and never know her name.” But ultimately, it is unsatisfying, and yet his songs of dissatisfaction are satisfying in their way. “Hello, Love Goodbye” makes a third song I have never heard Willie sing before, which makes this album interesting, if nothing else, for the opportunity it gives you to hear Willie sing something different. Johnny Gimble’s fiddle adds some gravitas to this recording. Willie famously proclaims, “I won’t hurt and I won’t cry no more.” But the cosmic cowboy doth protest too much, me thinks. I’ve already reviewed Willie’s rendition of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” (I think as it appeared on the duet compilation “Half-Nelson”). Willie keeps searching for a heart of gold, a miner, if you will. A roving miner, always looking for new ore. Hard to dig deep, though, when you are always moving. This restless search for the Platonic ideal of love, through marriages and divorces. What are we to make of it. Is it admirable? He wants to live and give, but “these expressions that he wants to give” somehow keep him searching, prevent him from ever finding. But why? Willie tackles a traditional ballad in “Kathleen.” “The roses all have left your cheek. I’ve watched them fade away and die. Your voice is weak when’er you speak. And tears bedim your loving eyes…But I will take you home, Kathleen, to where you will feel no pain.” Does this mean he will bury her, or that he will offer her perfect love? This may be the sparest, starkest (not to mention the longest, at 5:18), most haunting tune on the album. Willie should do an album of Irish ballads. That would be something new (and old at the same time). And then Willie surprises with George Harrison’s “Something” in the way she moves me. These settings are just too sweet. I want just Willie, Trigger, Johnny Gimble, and Mickey Raphael. The song selection is actually quite interesting here, but the settings cloy. Too saccharine to do the songs (and Willie’s vocals) justice. I don’t quite believe he means them. I just got off the phone with my dad, so “So Much Like My Dad” has a special poignancy at this moment. I probably shouldn’t admit this, but the line of the son to his mother, asking her advice about how to keep his woman from leaving--“Tell me word for word what he said that always made you stay”—gave me the chills. It’s touching, but of course, the problem is it wasn’t words, but actions, that made her stay. Willie, of course, is obsessed with the Platonic form of love found in words and songs, when real love is far messier because it lives in the world of actions. Promises and good intentions and a winsome personality are not enough to sustain love. Willie wants the magic bullet, the easy way to “always.” This version of “My Own Peculiar Way” ranks up there with the best. In an album of syrupy pop standards he dusts off a Willie standard and goes spare. This may be the best track on the album. I can’t get enough of Johnny Gimble’s fiddle. “Remember Me” fits with Willie’s obsession with time and memory and his tradition of “you’ll be sorry when I’m gone” songs. His trove of “I’ll be hear waiting for you, ever true, ever faithful, just waiting in the wings when you come to your senses” songs. “I’ll never change.” Ha! Lightening will strike Willie if he ever sings this song live. More likely he will never do anything but change. The one constant is that he will keep moving. And still may be still moving to him, but the rest of the world gets left behind all the same, exiled from the inner sanctum of his Buddhist calm. “Home Away from Home” is just another way of saying “still is still moving.” Willie finds his home on the road. Home motel. Honky Tonk home. And yet no one really wants a honky tonk to be their home if they have tasted what a real home can be. Willie’s outfit on the cover of this album may be worth the price, though. I don’t even know how to describe it except to say that no one else could pull it off (or would want to). But it’s endearingly unique all the same.

Island in the Sea (1987)

Willie self-produced this album in 1987, the year I graduated from high school, at his own Pedernales Recording Studios in Spicewood, Texas. He has his standard road band accompanying him along with some studio pros and even Bruce Hornsby on piano for one track. Willie starts out as a “roving cowboy” who sure has “made himself at home.” And for such a roving cowboy, sailor, drifter, he sure has found a friend. Again, the paradox of finding home on the road. Call it the “still is still moving” paradox. Willie’s yodeling at the end of his self-penned title track surprised me. The image and symbolism of an island in the midst of the sea, like the Honeysuckle Rose bus in the midst of the road, might represent the Buddhist calm in the midst of the storms of life. Willie then digs back into the old box of Willie standards and pulls out “Wake Me When It’s Over.” This isn’t my favorite version, but it’s an interesting bluesy take with a Stardust-quality production sound. Booker T. Jones produces one of the songs and pitches in on other tracks. Mickey’s harmonica threatens to steal the show as always. I prefer the 1967 version of “Little Things” with Shirley Nelson, but this one ranks a close second. The 1979 version on “Sweet Memories” ranks third of the three I have. I wish Willie sang this one more often. It’s one of his mellowest, most melancholy songs, and though I usually favor the mellow, melancholy albums, this album may be too mellow for me. It doesn’t quite make my untenable top ten because it just never took off for me. I kept waiting. The band, the production quality, the mixing, the song selection all suggest that this would rank as one of my favorites, but I think it just misses. This version of “Little Things,” though, is a five. Tom Paxton’s “Last Thing on My Mind” fits Willie’s obsession with thinking and minds. “I could have loved you better. I didn’t mean to be unkind. You know that was the last thing on my mind.” Because you were always on my mind. I always had the best intentions. In my mind my love was always perfect and true. Willie can deliver a wry turn of phrase, a pun, a twist, a semantic change-up like no other. The bottom drops out and your ears and mind swing foolishly. His delivery packs a deceptive wallop like a spitter or a knuckle ball. This version of “There is No Easy Way” is similarly solid, but not one of his top performances of this song (another near-miss). I guess my ears are starting to get greedy. I know how good he can be, and I wanted some of these to be even better. Bruce Hornsby’s “Nobody There But Me” is an interesting selection. It has a Montaigne-like sentiment that when you have to face the music, face your life, speak straightforward French, there’s nobody there but you to blame. “Cold November Wind” fits Willie’s autumnal theme, but it’s odd on an island album. How cold do November’s get on islands in the sea? Fall in Hawaii? “A cold November wind cuts the deepest of them all.” Willie (or P. Horne) connects the life of love to seasons. Inevitably fleeting. In a way, seasons are always on the road. Seasons are the perfect example of the “still is still moving” principle. They always change, but they always stay the same. And yet even though we know fall will come, or that cold November wind, it still surprises us like it’s the first time. And we are surprised that way by love, too. By time when it slips away, as if we didn’t know it would. Every time it strikes us as odd or funny, and yet we should know it is normal, not funny at all.

“Women Who Love Too Much” is Booker T. all the way. Willie trying to sing a slow jam R & B song. Women who hope that “life will be what once it seemed.” This may be a counterpart to “To All the Girls I loved Before.” Women who expect too much of love. Humans who expect too much of being human, of relationships, of mortality, of life. Women who believe the old lie that romance offers us. And yet what a beautiful lie. What do we gain by not believing it? This song is like nothing else in Willie’s repertoire. “All in the Name of Love” is another Booker T. song that has a pounding R&B beat, but you factor in a bass sounding harmonica and you have country R & B, whatever the heck that is. I’m not crazy about this song, but it’s so unusual, so unlike Willie’s other stuff, that it’s worth revisiting. What won’t we do in the name of love? As dark a story as Willie has ever told. “He left two holes where two hearts had been.” Reminds me of “I once had a heart, now I have a song.” We hurt, we kill in the name of love. Apparently Booker T. also buys into Willie’s fatalistic philosophy: “You can’t change the stars above.” I’m curious about how Mickey gets this funky, frightening bass sound out of his harmonica. Booker T.’s “Sky Train” is another story song, but this one seems to transcend the fatalism of the last one: “There must be better times if we keep moving down the line.” Booker T. seems to be writing Willie’s autobiography: “Midnight bands on endless tours in search of endless highs…we’re restless millions moving on, the lost and not yet found.” Still is still moving, but it’s restless till it finds rest in Thee. The satisfying high is fleeting, fickle, and elusive. We seek meaning without context, not knowing that context, relationship, is meaning. Context is text, text context. All facts are theory-laden. The tragedy and the theme of every Willie Nelson song is that we keep looking for a short-cut to deep and lasting satisfaction, and there just isn’t one. We pay for every short-cut dearly. We save time, but we lose so much more. We think art will redeem us, but it can’t.

Willie Nelson and Family Live in Austin, TX, 6/1/2000

Ordered this off Willie’s website. It came as a USB key in a rubber wristband which I gather you can purchase after the concert. I think the website has a dozen or so of these shows. A bit pricey at $30 a pop, but I’ll probably get ‘em all eventually.

Opens, of course, with “Whiskey River.” Not a memorable version, but it is nice to have a soundboard live recording from 2000. Then comes a solid version of “Good Hearted Woman.” Jody Payne is no Waylon, though. Willie leans on Jody quite a bit for vocals in this show. Mickey Raphael plays an inspired harmonica as always. He was the highlight of Willie’s performance on Letterman last night. Sister Bobbie follows with a rousing version of “Down Yonder” on piano. Jody Payne sings lead on “Working Man Blues.” I think Willie and Trigger have an extended solo as does Mickey Raphael. This version of “Me and Paul” may rank as one of my favorites. The soundboard recording lets you hear Willie’s vocals in a way that you can’t on other live recordings or studio albums. The sound is somehow more direct, more intimate. Willie has some fun with the phrasing on this version of “If You Got the Money,” and Mickey livens it up with his driving harmonica. Then Willie launches into the standard Funny/Crazy/Night Life medley. It’s a nice mellow 8:22 version with some interesting guitar work and Mickey’s haunting harmonica staying tastefully in the background. Again, it’s nice to hear Willie’s vocals so directly off the soundboard. “Mamma Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” just isn’t the same without Waylon. I could do without Jody’s vocals, but Willie is clearly having fun. I don’t know how he does it singing this song for the umpteenth time. This rendition of “Angel Flying to Close to the Ground” may be worth the $30 price for the USB key wristband. It’s just Willie and Trigger and a touch of drums and bass and harmonica. Willie then smartly picks up the pace with a speedy version of “On the Road Again,” but there are so many better versions available; this one doesn’t really distinguish itself. Then he slows it down again with “Always on My Mind.” I like hearing these ballads virtually solo acoustic live. I don’t know how he does it every night, but he sings this song like he just wrote it. Then he launches into a rousing version of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” with spaces for everyone in the family band to solo and a solid take on “Seven Spanish Angels.” Jody Payne is no Ray Charles, but who is. It’s a serviceable version. Followed by “City of New Orleans” and straight into “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before.” Willie even does a little Julio Iglesies imitation for a few words. Then he jumps into “Luchenbach Texas,” a reprise of “Whiskey River,” and “Still is Still Moving to Me.” The line “Don’t let her memory torture me” strikes me today. It reminds me of Brer Rabbit’s “Don’t throw me into the briar patch.” Willie loves being tortured by memories. That’s his bread and butter. His lachrymose lava. Who’s he kidding when he claims he doesn’t want to be tortured anymore by her memory. Even tortured memories can keep you company. Keep me company while you’re torturing me. Willie goes all out on this 7:35 version of “Milk Cow Blues.” I have to just marvel at Mickey Raphael’s tone. Every note is gorgeous. His timbre is Miles Davis-esque. I hope I’m rockin’ like this at 67. I love “Pancho and Lefty,” and Willie’s vocals are impressive on this 5:20 live version, but Jody is no Merle. “Till I Gain Control” is always one of my favorite songs, and this 4:21 version is no exception. It may be one of my favorite versions. This is the first version of “Just Because” I’ve heard Willie do, and a stirring version at that. Willie closes with Hank’s “Jambalaya.” “Son of a gun we’re gonna have some fun on the Bayou.” And Willie is certainly havin’ fun doing this show. I had fun listening to it, too.

Singin' with Willie (2004)

Well, I haven’t posted in almost a week, but I have been listening to Willie daily. Life’s just become too busy to blog (2B2B). I listened to him on his 77th birthday (April 30th?), and he is supposedly on the Letterman show tonight. I believe I now own 100 of his recordings, most on CD, a half dozen on vinyl, and now one on a USB key. Just discovered the live shows posted on his website (around 16 or so shows?). I ordered a 2000 show in Austin which I hope to review tomorrow. I’ve been listening to that live show and “Singin’ with Willie” for the past few days, savoring them, so I know them well.

“Singin’ with Willie” surprised me. I braced myself for another throwaway compilation. But this one truly serves a useful purpose. This is what compilations are supposed to do: provide fans with hard-to-find isolated tracks from albums they wouldn’t otherwise want to buy. A few of these are from albums I already own or will own soon, but more than half are from albums by other artists which I likely will never buy, and this compilation thus saved me a chunk of change. It also provides some of the more interesting duet partners. Not the big names like Julio Iglasies or Bono, but the lesser known likes of B.W. Stevenson and Steve Fromholz. The liner notes are actually very helpful as well. Well written, too, with clever turns of phrase like “fertile phosphate” and “lachrymose lava.” I don’t know who David Dawson is, or why some guy from Australia is putting together an album of obscure Willie Nelson duets, but I’m grateful. Dawson refers to Willie’s four marriages and four divorces in his first 40 or so years. Still is still moving indeed. These rapid-fire relationships clearly did provide plenty of fuel or “fertile phosphate” or “lachrymose lava” for Willie’s best songs. I’m also reminded that Willie’s house burned down in 1969. The year his career turned around and my life began.

I’ve already reviewed this version of “Willingly,” but it is worth noting that Shirley Nelson may be the only person who could ever truly sing “with” Willie. Most people sing next to him, behind him, or just give up. Willie’s 1978 duet with Hank Cochran—“Ain’t Life Hell”—is a fun romp. Another chance to hear Willie sing with one of his mentors. A very Buddhist sentiment—life is suffering—but Willie, like the Buddha, smiles and two-steps through it anyway. “Time Changes Everything” is another totemic Willie song (written by Tommy Duncan for Bob Wills). Willie is obsessed with time, and he can’t make up his mind whether it changes or stays the same or whether what he thinks about time even matters. If we change our mind can we change time? Is time in our mind? All in our head?

There Was a time When I Thought of no other

and we sang our own love’s refrain

Our hearts beat as one as we had our fun

but Time Changes Eve - ry Thing

When you left me my poor heart was broken

Our romance seemed all in vain

I thought nothing could stop me from loving you

But time changes eve - ry thing

Time has passed; I’ve forgotten you.

Mother Nature does wonderful things.

I guess it’s true for me and for you

‘Cause Time Changes Eve - ry thing

You can change the name of an old song

Rearrange it and make it swing

I thought nothing could stop me from loving you

But time changes eve - ry thing

So good luck to you and may God bless you

I can't say we won't love again

You go your way, and now I'll go mine

Cause Time changes every-thing

I thought nothing could stop me from loving you; I thought time couldn’t slip away. You said you’d love me forever, and I thought I’d love you forever, too. But ain’t it funny how time slips away? How it changes everything. And yet we keep trying to change it. To make it stand still, like Miss Havisham. Like the Grecian Urn. Willie’s life certainly changed a good bit in the early ‘90s when this was recorded. The IRS took everything and changed everything, and yet Willie somehow remained the same. Nuns Fret Not, and Willie frets not. Willie would still be moving, still be on the road, even in jail. And the road is a kind of prison to him, too. Good to hear Willie sing with the guy who wrote “Whiskey River,” which keeps flowing most nights at the start of Willie’s shows. Johnny Bush sounds like Ray Price. J.R. Chatwell sings straight up country gospel. Willie’s voice is great on all of these recordings, and the backing is mostly spare and restrained. This one is from 1998. “You’ve got to walk down the lonesome valley; you’ve got to go there by yourself; no one else can go there for you.” Even if that lonesome valley is a lonesome highway, is the road itself, you’ve got to walk it, face it, by yourself. I think Willie faces it fully in the album “Spirit,” but I’d like to hear him face it more often. The road is by definition lonely, and you have to go there at some point. The dark night of the soul. Then we jump back to 1974 and a Grammy-nominated duet with Tracy Nelson (no relation), “After the Fire is Gone.” “Nothing as cold as ashes after the fire is gone.” When you can’t find love at home, when it gets too cold, you seek warmth elsewhere, on the road. Willie is the anti-moth. Most moths run to the light, the hearth, to home, but Willie flees the light, looking for love in the darkness of the road. This sounds like a gospel tune turned cheatin’ song. “Boxcars My Home” (1986) almost needs no explication. It fits Willie’s “Still is Still Moving” philosophy perfectly. Railroads have always been his friend. The road has always been his home, his family. “Where I hang my hat is where I call home.” Here today, gone tomorrow. A sad, slow song. Mournful, high lonesome, Bluegrass kind of harmonies. Willie sings back up for Rodney Crowell on his own “Song for Life.” I’d love to hear Willie sing this one himself. “Keeps my feet on the ground.” A beautiful song, but not much Willie in this track. 1982’s “Just To Satisfy You” with Waylon strikes the theme of the elusiveness of satisfaction. I’ll skip a few tracks I’ve reviewed elsewhere, but I still don’t have a copy of Songs from Songwriter, so I’ll comment on the duet with Kristofferson on “Eye of the Storm”:

Maybe you bought all the lines that she told you

Maybe they tore you apart

Maybe she shrugged off your finest emotions

Carelessly walked on your heart

Life ain't for sissies and you ain't no sissy, boy

And only the strongest survive

Bad love is better than no love at all

At least you know you're alive.

Chorus:

And just thank God you still got your feelings

And you're free to be easy and warm

But from here to the end is what matters, my friend

And you're right at the peak of your form

Still in the eye of the storm

Maybe you tried somethin' too hard to handle

And maybe you took you a fall

Is it true that if not for the pain that you're feelin'

It wouldn't have mattered at all?

(tell the truth)

All there is left between living and dying

Is loving or leaving alone

You can take it or leave it, but make up your mind

Or fall on your ass on your own

Life may not be for sissies, but Willie sure cries a lot. The gist here seems to be that it is better to believe lies (like “I’ll love you forever”) and then be devastated, than to never believe them at all. Willie can be studiously naïve, deliberately unsophisticated. Is that what authenticity is? Is that what all New Yorker poems and short stories today lack—emotion?

David Alan Coe’s “I’ve Already Cheated on You” may take the Proustian cake, or Madeline, as the case may be.

She was only a face in the crowd

But our needs and desires spoke so loud

And before I could say I would try to be true

I'd already cheated on you

Oh the mysteries of love born at night

As we lay there it all seemed so right

Now it's too late to say I'll be true

Cause I've already cheated on you

I've already broken the vow that I made

The damage is already done

And though I know you've never been unfaithful to me darling

So the score now is zero to one

I feel guilty enough anyway

There's not really much more to say

I could say that I'm sorry

But what good would it do

Cause I'd already cheated on you

This takes Funny How Time Slips Away a step further. Time doesn’t just slip away quickly; love doesn’t just fade away fast; it’s gone before it even started. We’ve broken our vows before we’ve even made them? Is this the fall? Our fallen condition? Before I even say I’ll love you forever, I’ve already cheated on you? Now Willie is predicting the future, projecting lamentation and loss forward before it even happens. Not only can we cry over the past, but we can cry over the future, the certain failure of our future attempts to be true. If our minds TIVO time, then we know how it ends, and we can cry before it happens. I need to find more of Willie’s work with Coe. Willie’s 1977 cut with Mary Kay Place is another fun romp of a song. She hangs with Willie vocally like Shirley Nelson. Willie then goes Zydeco with his 1994 duet with Buckwheat Zydeco. A twist on Willie’s own “Man with the Blues.” Add this to the many genres in Willie’s repertoire. “Hondo’s Song” reminds me of some other Willie song I can’t put my finger on. “Beer for My Horses”? I can hardly believe what I’m hearing in Ray Wylie Hubbard’s “These Eyes”: “I won’t do you know wrong. I never will lie. Can’t you tell that I love you by lookin’ in these eyes?” Is that not the biggest lie of all? “I won’t do you know wrong”? “I never will lie”? After just singing that “I’ve Already Cheated on You.” Ha! Listening to these albums could make you schizophrenic. The 1986 duet with B. W. Stevens is a real find. An interesting singer and writer. Spare recording with harmonica, guitar, bass, and two voices. A touch of drums. This guy wrote “My Maria” in 1973. “Just One Love” sounds better than I remember it. May need to revisit that Kimmie Rhodes album. I think “Memphis” with Janis Ian may be the best cut on the compilation. No need to comment on it. Just listen. As good as Willie gets. Haunting vocals. Actually, I can’t resist commenting.

[Ian:]

We were standing by the river,

Staring into town.

All the world was on his shoulders,

The tears were raining down.

All along the southern skyline,

City lights begin to loom.

[Nelson:]

He said, "If you only knew her,

The way that I do, sir,

You would be crying too."

[Both:]

If you could see Memphis,

[Nelson:]

The way that I do,

[Both:]

She would look different to you.

[Nelson:]

Queen of the delta,

[Both:]

Tip your tiara,

Memphis, the belle of the blues.

[Nelson:]

Streets were filled with cotton.

And music filled the air.

All the paddle boats came rollin',

From east of everywhere.

Now the streets are filled with silence,

And songs no one can hear.

But her memory lingers,

It slips through my fingers,

[Both:]

And into this river of tears.

[Both:]

If you could see Memphis,

The way that I do,

She would look different to you.

[ Find more Lyrics on http://mp3lyrics.org/HMGU ]

[Nelson:]

Queen of the delta,

[Both:]

Tip your tiara,

Memphis, the belle of the blues.

[Instrumental break featuring Chet Atkins on guitar.]

[Both:]

So roll on, roll on.

[Nelson:]

My sweet magnolia,

[Both:]

Roll on.

Now the memory lingers,

It slips to my fingers.

[Nelson:]

And into this,

[Both:]

River of tears.

[Both:]

If you could see Memphis,

The way that I do,

She would look different to you.

[Nelson:]

Queen of the delta,

[Both:]

Tip your tiara.

[Ian:]

Memphis the belle of the blue-hoo-hoo-oos.

[Nelson:]

Memphis the belle of the blues.

[MEMPHIS]

Written by: Deana Carter & Janis Ian

Performed by: Janis Ian & Willie Nelson [1] , with Chet Atkins on guitar.

Appears on: Appears on: God & the FBI (US-11 tracks) [2] -2000, God & the FBI

(Japan-14 tracks)-2000 & Singin' with Willie-2004.]

[1] Attempting to save money on the production of the album, God & the FBI,

the core group (instruments & vocals by Janis, Jim Cregan, Marc Moreau, and

Philip Clark), did all the singing, with the exception of this song, which was

the only one on the album to have outside musicians--Willie Nelson and Chet

Atkins.]

[2] Transcribed from the track on this album.]

[Copyright © Janis Ian/her co-writer(s) if any/their publisher(s).

All rights reserved.]

Lyrics: Memphis, Janis Ian [end]

Here “memory lingers” and then it slips away, “It slips through my fingers,” but it isn’t funny this time. It slips “into this river of tears.” And what can it mean to be the “Belle of the Blues”? Who would want to be the belle of such a thing? Is it like Beauty and the Beast? Beauty and the Blues? Or is Blues Beauty? Truth is beauty, beauty truth, and truth is the blues, the blues truth. Another river of tears. It seems time and tears are indistinguishable. Both are rivers. Both roll unceasingly.