Outlaw Country: Live from Austin, TX (1996)

This live album was recorded on September 22, 1996 for the “Austin City Limits” TV show.  I will focus on the tracks featuring Willie, though the cast includes Waylon, Kris, Billy Joe Shaver, and Kimmie Rhodes, along with Mickey Raphael, Jerry Bridges, Gabe Rhodes, and Eddy Shaver.  You hear Trigger here and there on tracks even when Willie isn’t singing.  You also hear Willie commenting occasionally between tracks.  The singers are sitting in chairs on a stage.  The sound is like that you’ll find in the Bluebird Café in Nashville.  1996 is the year Willie recorded “Spirit,” possibly my favorite Willie album, so this is an important album for me because it provides another example of Willie’s voice during this pivotal year in his career.  Willie kicks off “Just One Love” (track 3) with Kimmie Rhodes.  It blows the studio recordings of this album right out of your cd player (our out of your ITUNES playlist).  Willie recorded a studio version in 1995 with Kimmie, but it can’t compare with this one.  You can only find versions of “We Don’t Run” (track 5) in a few other places (“Songbird,” “Spirit,” and a 1996 KGSN Radio Austin Broadcast).  Although Willie says in the intro that he used to do this song with The Highwaymen, I don’t see any versions on the three Highwaymen albums.  Mickey’s harmonica bolsters several songs in this set.  This is the only other place besides “Spirit” you will hear my favorite Willie Nelson song, “Too Sick to Pray” (track 10).  Not surprisingly, Willie opens this most serious of songs by cracking jokes about “Whiskey River” and “I Gotta Get Drunk.”  He calls it a “loophole song.”  Interestingly, “Spirit” is one of the few Willie albums that doesn’t feature Mickey Raphael on harmonica, so it is a treat to hear him play on this song in this setting.  They close the set with Willie’s classic anthem “On the Road” (track 14).  A solid version, but not my favorite, though Trigger features prominently.