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?