It’s amazing that after a year of listening to Willie Nelson daily, I am still finding new stuff. Some of the tracks on the first disc of “Nashville was the Roughest” I have never heard before. I have all of these early RCA records, but this disc contains unreleased versions, many of which lack the syrupy overdubbed choruses and strings. The first seven tracks come from Willie’s brief stint with Monument. Add “King of a Lonely Castle” to the long list of Willie’s house songs. And they are always lonely houses, mansions, castles, homes. To make a long story short, and to sum up all of Willie’s life and music, and all of these blogs: “she’s gone.” She being a lover (representing peace, contentment, fulfillment), and she being time. Time and contentment are always eluding us. The only way for this predicament to resolve itself would be for time to stop, which is what art tries to do: stop time and give us that God-like perspective. Songs do that because we can play them again and again. They are always there to satisfy when life cannot. Art doesn’t change the way life and people do. So “she” is always literal and figurative. In this first track, the queen of Willie’s castle is gone. The background is hilariously over-the-top, but Willie’s vocals remain interesting, straining at the edges of meter Sinatra-like even in 1964. The trumpets in “(There’ll Be) Someone Waiting for You” are too much, but Willie slows down phrases and bends notes and measures in pleasing ways. All seven songs recorded for Monument are Willie originals, and this one is another she-left-me-but-I’ll-wait-patiently-in-case-she-ever-returns songs. Willie as the ever-faithful one, longing, pining, hoping his love will come to her senses and realize what she’s left behind. “To Make a Long Story Short” (track three) features a harmonica for the first time in Willie’s career, and this sound will come to define his music. “I Never Cared for You” and the next three songs come from the second Monument session (July 26, 1964) which includes a much smaller band: just guitar, drums, bass, and sax. “You Left Me a Long, Long Time Ago” (track 5) is as spare as his early Pamper demo recordings. People leave us even when they are with us. They aren’t with us when they’re with us. This is why it is so hard to be satisfied. People can never truly be with us enough to satisfy all of our longings. Yet the desire for such complete oneness remains and is the driving impetus for most art. The desire drives us to try to create in art what we can’t find in life. “I Feel That Old Feeling” (track 6) has the same spare, raw demo quality. That old feeling, “the voice of discontentment,” the wanderlust, haunts Willie like an old memory. Willie can feel this old feeling comin’ on like a cold. This second version of “King of a Lonely Castle” (track 7) removes all of the strings and back-up vocals but leaves the absurd bugle. Nevertheless, it is one of the best examples of Willie’s pure vocals from this era. These previously un-released Monument tracks alone are worth the price of the box set. With track 8 we switch to RCA and Chet Atkins (November 12, 1964). Not the best version of Willie’s “Pretty Paper.” The ooh-ah chorus distracts. Ditto for “What a Merry Christmas this Could Be,” though Willie still manages to flirt dangerously with the meter, and Pete Drake’s steel adds some legit heartache. “Healing Hands of Time” (track 10) and “Talk to Me” (track 11) suffer the same fate at the hands of the ooh-ah chorus. You won’t hear Willie singing the German “Whiskey Walzer” (track 12) anywhere else (December 3, 1964). On “Little Darling” (track 13) Willie overdubs German vocals to the backing of “Pretty Paper” from track 8. The heartache seems to translate well into German. I wonder what the Germans thought. I guess the Bear Family liked it. This version of “Permanently Lonely” (January 12, 1965) can’t compare to the Pamper demo version, but Willie’s vocals, Pete Drake’s steel, and Pig Robbins’ piano remain interesting. The January 12, 1965 version of “Healing Hands of Time” (track 15) may be worse that the one on track 10 with even more of the Anita Kerr Singers and a “full-blown string section.” Somehow “Ashamed” works better for me. While the strings and chorus still annoy, they seem more fitting. Can’t explain why. These cuts appeared on Willie’s 1968 album “Good Times.” Willie seems more comfortable. In “She’s Not For You” (track 17), Willie sings about a woman who promises to be true. He warns a friend to avoid her because “sometimes she lies,” and time slips away, and forever doesn’t last as long as you think it will. He ends with this great line I’ve somehow missed on previous listenings: “Just leave her here, I’m used to feeling blue.” Jumping ahead to April 7, 1965, Willie has a much sparer back-up group of electric guitar, steel, bass, and drums. This version of “Are You Sure” is as good as Willie gets. A treasure. The cheesy snaps on this version of “Night Life” (track 19) seem out of place, but this is Willie the way he was meant to be recorded: naked. One annoying feature of the Bear Family discography is that they don’t indicate which album(s) each track eventually appeared on. I appreciate that they list the recordings by studio session and in chronological order, but you have to go back through the lengthy liner notes to track down which albums the songs appeared on. I guess when I have all of the albums loaded in ITUNES I’ll be able to tell fairly quickly. These versions of “Mr. Record Man” (track 20) and “Healing Hands of Time” (track 21) from the pared down April 7th session surpass anything else Willie did at this time. Even the liner notes don’t make clear which album these spare tracks ended up on. This raw version of “Funny How Time Slips Away” (track 22) comes from the April 8th session as does “My Own Peculiar Way” (track 23), “One Day at a Time” (24), “It Should Be Easier Now” (25), and “Darkness On the Face of the Earth” (26). “Buddy” (27), “Hello Walls” (28), “So Much to Do” (29), and “Within Your Crowd” come from the April 9th session and round out “the album,” according to the Bear Family, but they don’t say which one. So often the sappy Nashville Sound gets blamed for ruining Willie’s songs, but even these perfectly spare recordings didn’t sell in 1965, so it seems fair to say that listeners just weren’t ready for Willie in any setting in 1965. “Darkness on the Face of the Earth” has a dance-like beat that seems inappropriate for the dark content, but it foreshadows Willie’s flamenco versions on “Teatro.” In the liner notes Rich Kienzle dismisses Pete Drake’s talking steel on “Hello Walls.” One disc down, seven to go. A great way to spend my last week of vacation. A disc of Willie a day keeps the heartache at bay.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Nashville was the Roughest (disc 1)
My Christmas present to myself was the Bear Family’s mammoth eight-cd Willie box set “Nashville was the Roughest,” which chronicles Willie’s eight years and 44 sessions with RCA (1964-1972) along with his two sessions (and seven songs) with Monument in 1964. The question remains, will the Bear Family tackle Willie’s Atlantic Years (1973-1974) or his Columbia years (1975-1993)? I guess the Complete Atlantic Recordings box set covers 1973-1974, but I’d love to see the Bear Family tackle the Columbia years. I think the four-cd box set “One Hell of a Ride” attempts to cover the Columbia years, but it only scratches the surface.
It’s amazing that after a year of listening to Willie Nelson daily, I am still finding new stuff. Some of the tracks on the first disc of “Nashville was the Roughest” I have never heard before. I have all of these early RCA records, but this disc contains unreleased versions, many of which lack the syrupy overdubbed choruses and strings. The first seven tracks come from Willie’s brief stint with Monument. Add “King of a Lonely Castle” to the long list of Willie’s house songs. And they are always lonely houses, mansions, castles, homes. To make a long story short, and to sum up all of Willie’s life and music, and all of these blogs: “she’s gone.” She being a lover (representing peace, contentment, fulfillment), and she being time. Time and contentment are always eluding us. The only way for this predicament to resolve itself would be for time to stop, which is what art tries to do: stop time and give us that God-like perspective. Songs do that because we can play them again and again. They are always there to satisfy when life cannot. Art doesn’t change the way life and people do. So “she” is always literal and figurative. In this first track, the queen of Willie’s castle is gone. The background is hilariously over-the-top, but Willie’s vocals remain interesting, straining at the edges of meter Sinatra-like even in 1964. The trumpets in “(There’ll Be) Someone Waiting for You” are too much, but Willie slows down phrases and bends notes and measures in pleasing ways. All seven songs recorded for Monument are Willie originals, and this one is another she-left-me-but-I’ll-wait-patiently-in-case-she-ever-returns songs. Willie as the ever-faithful one, longing, pining, hoping his love will come to her senses and realize what she’s left behind. “To Make a Long Story Short” (track three) features a harmonica for the first time in Willie’s career, and this sound will come to define his music. “I Never Cared for You” and the next three songs come from the second Monument session (July 26, 1964) which includes a much smaller band: just guitar, drums, bass, and sax. “You Left Me a Long, Long Time Ago” (track 5) is as spare as his early Pamper demo recordings. People leave us even when they are with us. They aren’t with us when they’re with us. This is why it is so hard to be satisfied. People can never truly be with us enough to satisfy all of our longings. Yet the desire for such complete oneness remains and is the driving impetus for most art. The desire drives us to try to create in art what we can’t find in life. “I Feel That Old Feeling” (track 6) has the same spare, raw demo quality. That old feeling, “the voice of discontentment,” the wanderlust, haunts Willie like an old memory. Willie can feel this old feeling comin’ on like a cold. This second version of “King of a Lonely Castle” (track 7) removes all of the strings and back-up vocals but leaves the absurd bugle. Nevertheless, it is one of the best examples of Willie’s pure vocals from this era. These previously un-released Monument tracks alone are worth the price of the box set. With track 8 we switch to RCA and Chet Atkins (November 12, 1964). Not the best version of Willie’s “Pretty Paper.” The ooh-ah chorus distracts. Ditto for “What a Merry Christmas this Could Be,” though Willie still manages to flirt dangerously with the meter, and Pete Drake’s steel adds some legit heartache. “Healing Hands of Time” (track 10) and “Talk to Me” (track 11) suffer the same fate at the hands of the ooh-ah chorus. You won’t hear Willie singing the German “Whiskey Walzer” (track 12) anywhere else (December 3, 1964). On “Little Darling” (track 13) Willie overdubs German vocals to the backing of “Pretty Paper” from track 8. The heartache seems to translate well into German. I wonder what the Germans thought. I guess the Bear Family liked it. This version of “Permanently Lonely” (January 12, 1965) can’t compare to the Pamper demo version, but Willie’s vocals, Pete Drake’s steel, and Pig Robbins’ piano remain interesting. The January 12, 1965 version of “Healing Hands of Time” (track 15) may be worse that the one on track 10 with even more of the Anita Kerr Singers and a “full-blown string section.” Somehow “Ashamed” works better for me. While the strings and chorus still annoy, they seem more fitting. Can’t explain why. These cuts appeared on Willie’s 1968 album “Good Times.” Willie seems more comfortable. In “She’s Not For You” (track 17), Willie sings about a woman who promises to be true. He warns a friend to avoid her because “sometimes she lies,” and time slips away, and forever doesn’t last as long as you think it will. He ends with this great line I’ve somehow missed on previous listenings: “Just leave her here, I’m used to feeling blue.” Jumping ahead to April 7, 1965, Willie has a much sparer back-up group of electric guitar, steel, bass, and drums. This version of “Are You Sure” is as good as Willie gets. A treasure. The cheesy snaps on this version of “Night Life” (track 19) seem out of place, but this is Willie the way he was meant to be recorded: naked. One annoying feature of the Bear Family discography is that they don’t indicate which album(s) each track eventually appeared on. I appreciate that they list the recordings by studio session and in chronological order, but you have to go back through the lengthy liner notes to track down which albums the songs appeared on. I guess when I have all of the albums loaded in ITUNES I’ll be able to tell fairly quickly. These versions of “Mr. Record Man” (track 20) and “Healing Hands of Time” (track 21) from the pared down April 7th session surpass anything else Willie did at this time. Even the liner notes don’t make clear which album these spare tracks ended up on. This raw version of “Funny How Time Slips Away” (track 22) comes from the April 8th session as does “My Own Peculiar Way” (track 23), “One Day at a Time” (24), “It Should Be Easier Now” (25), and “Darkness On the Face of the Earth” (26). “Buddy” (27), “Hello Walls” (28), “So Much to Do” (29), and “Within Your Crowd” come from the April 9th session and round out “the album,” according to the Bear Family, but they don’t say which one. So often the sappy Nashville Sound gets blamed for ruining Willie’s songs, but even these perfectly spare recordings didn’t sell in 1965, so it seems fair to say that listeners just weren’t ready for Willie in any setting in 1965. “Darkness on the Face of the Earth” has a dance-like beat that seems inappropriate for the dark content, but it foreshadows Willie’s flamenco versions on “Teatro.” In the liner notes Rich Kienzle dismisses Pete Drake’s talking steel on “Hello Walls.” One disc down, seven to go. A great way to spend my last week of vacation. A disc of Willie a day keeps the heartache at bay.
It’s amazing that after a year of listening to Willie Nelson daily, I am still finding new stuff. Some of the tracks on the first disc of “Nashville was the Roughest” I have never heard before. I have all of these early RCA records, but this disc contains unreleased versions, many of which lack the syrupy overdubbed choruses and strings. The first seven tracks come from Willie’s brief stint with Monument. Add “King of a Lonely Castle” to the long list of Willie’s house songs. And they are always lonely houses, mansions, castles, homes. To make a long story short, and to sum up all of Willie’s life and music, and all of these blogs: “she’s gone.” She being a lover (representing peace, contentment, fulfillment), and she being time. Time and contentment are always eluding us. The only way for this predicament to resolve itself would be for time to stop, which is what art tries to do: stop time and give us that God-like perspective. Songs do that because we can play them again and again. They are always there to satisfy when life cannot. Art doesn’t change the way life and people do. So “she” is always literal and figurative. In this first track, the queen of Willie’s castle is gone. The background is hilariously over-the-top, but Willie’s vocals remain interesting, straining at the edges of meter Sinatra-like even in 1964. The trumpets in “(There’ll Be) Someone Waiting for You” are too much, but Willie slows down phrases and bends notes and measures in pleasing ways. All seven songs recorded for Monument are Willie originals, and this one is another she-left-me-but-I’ll-wait-patiently-in-case-she-ever-returns songs. Willie as the ever-faithful one, longing, pining, hoping his love will come to her senses and realize what she’s left behind. “To Make a Long Story Short” (track three) features a harmonica for the first time in Willie’s career, and this sound will come to define his music. “I Never Cared for You” and the next three songs come from the second Monument session (July 26, 1964) which includes a much smaller band: just guitar, drums, bass, and sax. “You Left Me a Long, Long Time Ago” (track 5) is as spare as his early Pamper demo recordings. People leave us even when they are with us. They aren’t with us when they’re with us. This is why it is so hard to be satisfied. People can never truly be with us enough to satisfy all of our longings. Yet the desire for such complete oneness remains and is the driving impetus for most art. The desire drives us to try to create in art what we can’t find in life. “I Feel That Old Feeling” (track 6) has the same spare, raw demo quality. That old feeling, “the voice of discontentment,” the wanderlust, haunts Willie like an old memory. Willie can feel this old feeling comin’ on like a cold. This second version of “King of a Lonely Castle” (track 7) removes all of the strings and back-up vocals but leaves the absurd bugle. Nevertheless, it is one of the best examples of Willie’s pure vocals from this era. These previously un-released Monument tracks alone are worth the price of the box set. With track 8 we switch to RCA and Chet Atkins (November 12, 1964). Not the best version of Willie’s “Pretty Paper.” The ooh-ah chorus distracts. Ditto for “What a Merry Christmas this Could Be,” though Willie still manages to flirt dangerously with the meter, and Pete Drake’s steel adds some legit heartache. “Healing Hands of Time” (track 10) and “Talk to Me” (track 11) suffer the same fate at the hands of the ooh-ah chorus. You won’t hear Willie singing the German “Whiskey Walzer” (track 12) anywhere else (December 3, 1964). On “Little Darling” (track 13) Willie overdubs German vocals to the backing of “Pretty Paper” from track 8. The heartache seems to translate well into German. I wonder what the Germans thought. I guess the Bear Family liked it. This version of “Permanently Lonely” (January 12, 1965) can’t compare to the Pamper demo version, but Willie’s vocals, Pete Drake’s steel, and Pig Robbins’ piano remain interesting. The January 12, 1965 version of “Healing Hands of Time” (track 15) may be worse that the one on track 10 with even more of the Anita Kerr Singers and a “full-blown string section.” Somehow “Ashamed” works better for me. While the strings and chorus still annoy, they seem more fitting. Can’t explain why. These cuts appeared on Willie’s 1968 album “Good Times.” Willie seems more comfortable. In “She’s Not For You” (track 17), Willie sings about a woman who promises to be true. He warns a friend to avoid her because “sometimes she lies,” and time slips away, and forever doesn’t last as long as you think it will. He ends with this great line I’ve somehow missed on previous listenings: “Just leave her here, I’m used to feeling blue.” Jumping ahead to April 7, 1965, Willie has a much sparer back-up group of electric guitar, steel, bass, and drums. This version of “Are You Sure” is as good as Willie gets. A treasure. The cheesy snaps on this version of “Night Life” (track 19) seem out of place, but this is Willie the way he was meant to be recorded: naked. One annoying feature of the Bear Family discography is that they don’t indicate which album(s) each track eventually appeared on. I appreciate that they list the recordings by studio session and in chronological order, but you have to go back through the lengthy liner notes to track down which albums the songs appeared on. I guess when I have all of the albums loaded in ITUNES I’ll be able to tell fairly quickly. These versions of “Mr. Record Man” (track 20) and “Healing Hands of Time” (track 21) from the pared down April 7th session surpass anything else Willie did at this time. Even the liner notes don’t make clear which album these spare tracks ended up on. This raw version of “Funny How Time Slips Away” (track 22) comes from the April 8th session as does “My Own Peculiar Way” (track 23), “One Day at a Time” (24), “It Should Be Easier Now” (25), and “Darkness On the Face of the Earth” (26). “Buddy” (27), “Hello Walls” (28), “So Much to Do” (29), and “Within Your Crowd” come from the April 9th session and round out “the album,” according to the Bear Family, but they don’t say which one. So often the sappy Nashville Sound gets blamed for ruining Willie’s songs, but even these perfectly spare recordings didn’t sell in 1965, so it seems fair to say that listeners just weren’t ready for Willie in any setting in 1965. “Darkness on the Face of the Earth” has a dance-like beat that seems inappropriate for the dark content, but it foreshadows Willie’s flamenco versions on “Teatro.” In the liner notes Rich Kienzle dismisses Pete Drake’s talking steel on “Hello Walls.” One disc down, seven to go. A great way to spend my last week of vacation. A disc of Willie a day keeps the heartache at bay.
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