Nashville was the Roughest (disc 5)

This disc continues with the November 1969 sessions that led to Willie’s “Both Sides Now” LP.  Willie does a competent interpretation of Ray Price’s “Crazy Arms” (track 1), but it doesn’t have Willie’s unique vocal stamp upon it.  “I Gotta Get Drunk” (track 2) sounds like Hank Williams.  The song becomes more interesting when you read Willie’s autobiography and find out that Willie stole the line from one of his friends.  The November 13^th session has a tight band: just Willie (guitar), Day (steel), Zettner (bass), and Billy English (drums).  “Wabash Cannonball” (track 3) showcases more of Willie’s burgeoning guitar virtuosity.  Eddie Dean’s “One Has My Name (The Other Has My Heart)” (track 4) features Day’s weeping steel and a look at Willie’s perpetually divided and wandering heart.  Willie asks, “What good is love to a heart who can’t be free?”  In other words, is love freedom, or the very opposite of freedom?  Put another way, what is the relationship between love and freedom?  This question drives all of Willie’s music.  Hank Cochran’s “Who Do I Know in Dallas” (track 5) seems to be describing Willie’s life.  “I can’t spend the night without someone.  The lonelies would drive me insane.  So who do I know in Dallas, that will make me be happy I came?”  The irony of the freedom-loving outlaw who needs a woman in every city to help him combat loneliness.  He flees loneliness, but it follows him around.  Joni Mitchell may be the only singer-songwriter as quirky as Willie, so it is fitting that Willie covers her song “Both Sides Now” and names an album after it.  Her album “Blue” from 1970 is one of my all-time favorites.  “Both Sides Now” (track 6) gets at the duality inherent in all of Willie’s music.  “I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now…I really don’t know clouds at all.”  The man who sings of love for fifty years (and through four wives) admits at the outset of his career, “I really don’t know love at all.”  The blind leading the blind.  In “It Could Be Said That Way” (track 7), Willie asks, “What’s the point in making leaving any harder than a leaving ought to be?”  Which raises the question, how hard should leaving be?  In Shirley Nelson’s “Once More with Feeling” (track 8), Willie begs, “Hold me close.  Don’t let this feeling go away.”  This small band from these November 1969 sessions may be one of the best settings for Willie’s music.

We then jump ahead to three sessions in June 1970 to record the “Laying My Burdens Down” LP.  It’s another small band but a different slate of musicians (except for Grady Martin).  Willie sings that her memory is “Following Me Around” (track 9) so he will “never be alone.”  Her memory “has finally found a home.”  More of the theme of memory having a mind of its own.  A host of horns mars “Following Me Around” and a host of strings mars “Minstrel Man” (track 10).  Willie sings, “Nobody wants to hear your songs of love.”  Not sure why “Where Do You Stand” (track 11) has crowd noise at the beginning.  The chorus and strings are a bit much.  I have discussed the irony of “It’s time for commitments” coming from an outlaw and a perpetually rolling stone.  A rolling stone misses the moss.  “Missing the Moss” could be the title of Willie’s life.  In “When We Live Again” (track 11), Willie seems to be espousing reincarnation: “Let’s not lose the days…let’s plan to love when we live again.”  We don’t have to lose time.  We can always get it back in another life.  I’m a sucker for the funky “If You Could See What’s Going Through My Mind” (track 13), another of Willie’s mind songs.  Everything would be okay if only people could read my mind, could know how good all my intentions were.  “Happiness Lives Next Door” (track 14) didn’t make the final cut for the album, but I actually think it is one of the better recordings from these sessions (minus the ooh-ah chorus).  “I’ve Seen That Look on Me (A Thousand Times Before)” (track 15) shows Willie’s ability to see things from both sides, his negative capability.  His capacity for sympathy and empathy is part of his attraction.  Track 16 is a funkier version of “I Don’t Feel Anything.”  I actually think Willie could have success with a funky, R & B backing.  “Laying My Burdens Down” (track 17) is one of my favorite Willie songs, and one I wish he would perform live in concert.  I’m convinced it could be a crowd pleaser.  The gospel chorus actually works on this one.  Can’t think of a thing to say about “How Long Have You Been There” (track 18), but “Senses” (track 19) turns a nice phrase: “It’s over, but I don’t have the sense to let you go.”  Then we jump to three November 1970 sessions to record the “Willie Nelson and Family” LP.   Rich Kienzle shreds this album in the liner notes.  He calls it “one of his worst RCA albums” and “grossly overproduced” (page 40).  Kienzle also calls James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” a “wussy pop-folk ballad” (40).  The irony of the lyrics of “What Can You Do to Me Now?” (track 21) and the syrupy setting makes me wonder if the whole thing isn’t just a joke.  In other words, how much worse can you produce me?  How much worse can you butcher my songs with your Nashville Sound?  Cindy Walker’s “The Loser’s Song” doesn’t fit Willie’s style; sounds more like a Johnny Cash song.  Willie could make “Fire and Rain” (track 23) interesting, but he just sings it like JT, which makes you wonder, why bother?  “I Can Cry Again” (track 24) shows that Willie can still cry with the best of them.  Willie tries to soar with an operatic voice in these recordings, but his voice works better with quiet understatement.  For some reason, “I’m a Memory” (track 25) works for me, even with the excessive production.  “That’s Why I Love Her So” (track 26) leaves me cold, but the naked version of “If You Could Only See What’s Going Through My Mind” (track 27) is one of the best 3-4 tracks on this disc.  The naked version of “The Loser’s Song” (track 28) is also much stronger than the more fully produced version.  The Bear Family packs most of three albums on this one disc, so you do get your money’s worth with close to three albums per disc on eight discs, so almost 24 album’s worth of music in one box set, complete with all of the alternate takes and naked versions (minus the overdubs).