Nashville was the Roughest (disc 2)

The strings are back on August 2nd, 1965 for “Did I Ever Love You,” but this disc provides both the Nashville Sound versions (overdubbed on August 17th) and the naked, non-overdubbed versions. In “And So Will You My Love,” Willie sings, “Nothing lasts forever except forever and you, my love.”  The liner notes don’t make clear where these first four recordings ended up album-wise, but tracks 5-16 (in a slightly different order) are from December 15th and 16th sessions and end up on “Country Favorites: Willie Nelson Style”.  “Fraulein” (track 5) is pleasantly devoid of strings and back-up singers.  Wade Ray’s fiddle and the rest of the Texas Troubadours provide a much better backing for Willie than Chet Atkins’ earlier settings.  I’ve reviewed the tracks from this album in a previous blog--“I Love You Because,” “I’d Trade All of My Tomorrows,” “Making Believe,” “Home in San Antone,” “Don’t You Ever Get Tired (of Hurting Me),” “Columbus Stockade Blues,” “Seasons of My Hearts,” “Heartaches By the Number,” “Go on Home,” “My Window Faces South,” and “San Antonio Rose”—but I appreciate more fully today, after a year of listening to Willie non-stop, the tight band behind Willie on this LP.  Wade Ray’s fiddle blisters through “Home in San Antone.”  Willie does his best George Jones imitation on track ten: “Don’t You Ever Get Tired (of Hurting Me).”  Buddy Charleton’s steel weeps with Willie on this classic tear jerker.  This version of “Columbus Stockade Blues” doesn’t seem as strong as the three Liberty versions with Shirley Collie.  The spare “Seasons of My Heart” (track 12) may be my favorite thus far on this disc.  Just Willie, steel, piano, snare, and bass.  “Go On Home”  (track 14) is another bleak, moody heartbreaker.  In March 1966, Willie returned to the studio with Felton Jarvis at the helm.  The Nashville Sound is back with a vengeance on “I’m Still Not Over You.”  The only other place I can find Willie recording this song is on his duet album with Ray Price, “Run That By Me One More Time,” and the version on that album is much stronger.  “Today I made a point to go somewhere I knew you’d be.  I had to know if you still had the same effect on me.  And the moment I saw you there I knew, no matter what I do, I’m still not over you.”   This reminds me of one of my favorite country lines (from a late 1980’s Randy Travis album): “Is it still over?  Are we still through?  My phone still ain’t ringin’, so I assume it still ain’t you.”  Willie continues, “I can’t explain why seeing you affects my sanity, but when I see you I become a strange and different me.”  Not sure why Willie re-recorded “San Antonio Rose” and “Columbus Stockade Blues” in March 1966.  Sounds like the Beach Boys with a rock and roll beat and trumpets.  Willie returns to the studio in June 1966, and this disc gives us both the over-dubbed and the naked versions of these singles, two of which became Willie’s biggest RCA singles to date: “One in a Row” (reaching #18) and “The Party’s Over” (peaking at #24).  “A Wonderful Yesterday” (track 21) contains some of my favorite Willie lines: “Today’s gonna make a wonderful yesterday…today we have made a thousand and one memories that we can recall when today is a sweet used-to-be.”  This disc ends with eight naked versions of songs (tracks 25-32) that are far superior to the sweetened versions that appear earlier on the disc.  The semi-naked, partially-clothed versions of “The Party’s Over” and “One in a Row” lack the strings but still have the background singers, so they aren’t actually as different as I had hoped they would be.  Nevertheless, these first two discs have proven that that this collection is worth the steep price.