OPO:Willie Nelson

fwiw the original television version of "edge of darkness" prominently features "time of the preacher" from red-headed stranger, and joe don baker even sings along with it at one point

Pancho & Lefty of course was a Townes Van Zandt track originally. My fave version might be the Emmylou Harris tbh.

Emmylou Harris is interviewed in that TVZ documentary, and frankly she doesn't come off terribly well. She refers to P&L as "my song" and said she was a little chagrined that Willie and Merle had a hit with it. She doesn't really seem to acknowledge any irony.

kinda shocking to hear a country music singer be so posessive, esp of a song she didn't write

and about 1,000 people recorded it in the interim

been into "can i sleep in your arms" a lot lately.

"Hands on the Wheel" makes me cry, and I'm not ashamed to say so.

Didn't Willie write "Hello walls", "Crazy" and "Funny how time slips away" in one week? That's incredible.

He says he wrote "Crazy", "Night Life", and "Ain't It Funny How Time Slips Away" in one week.

http://www.digitalinterviews.com/digitalinterviews/views/nelsonw.shtml

DI: Once you first got to Nashville, you put out some all-time classics.

WN: I was working in Houston in fact, living over in Pasadena -- driving all the way from Hempstead Highway back over to Pasadena every night. I wrote songs on the way, back and forth. In one week over there, I wrote “Crazy,” “Funny How Time Slips Away” and “Night Life.” So, when I went to Nashville, I had those ready to go. It was a good week.

Best week ever, more like it.

The Pigtails Are Gone: Willie Nelson Cuts His Hair

(AP) AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Country music fans have come to expect a little eccentricity from legendary crooner Willie Nelson, but he pulled off a real shocker this time. He cut his hair. "Oh Noooooo!," wrote one fan who saw a picture of Nelson's new do on the website of Nashville TV and radio personality Jimmy Carter. Nelson's waist-deep, reddish pigtails have long been one of the singer-songwriter's signature features. But spokeswoman Elaine Schock said Nelson, who's been hanging loose in Hawaii, got his hair cut in the past couple of weeks. She said the Texas-born performer didn't make a big fuss about the makeover, but she thought he might have grown tired of dealing with long locks. "There's a lot of maintenance," she said.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_E7UTvjLxuuY/S_02W0_EXeI/AAAAAAAABVI/MLyPa5rtpZA/s1600/1048_1274874836.jpg

Still almost shoulder length. Looks like a wig, kinda

I'm more surprised that he's playing electric guitar.

yeah, where the hell is "Trigger"

My favorite Willie song is "Me and Paul"

I swear I saw a video of Willie Nelson doing a heartbreaking acoustic 'I Will Always Love You' sometime somewhere, but since haven't even been able to find evidence of its existence. Anyone?

― Ralph, Waldo, Emerson, Lake & Palmer (Merdeyeux), Friday, May 1, 2009 11:37 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

any chance it was 'you are always on my mind'? i know he's done loads of medlies with dolly parton, but can't recall 'i will always love you' off the top of my head.

― Old Big 'OOS (AKA the Cupwinner) (darraghmac), Friday, May 1, 2009 11:43 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah it probably was. I've just convinced myself that it was 'I Will Always Love You' so much that I can't help but feel the need to hear a song that doesn't exist.

― Ralph, Waldo, Emerson, Lake & Palmer (Merdeyeux), Friday, May 1, 2009 11:57 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark

so obviously it was 'You Are Always On My Mind', but I still hadn't been able to find it. Until last night, when it was on a BBC 4 show called '...Sings Elvis'. Pleasingly it ended up on iplayer, so in my small contribution to society I ripped it and uploaded it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj0yyyu8WkY

I like it a lot more than I do the recorded version, the way Willie's irregular vocal phrasing goes against the grain of his equally irregular guitar phrasing is perfect.

mentioned over on the Highwaymen poll -- but this Complete Atlantic Recordings set is AWESOME and only $2.99 on amazon mp3. http://t.co/f1H5UApR i've got all the records on vinyl, but the outtakes/alternates are killer and there's a whole kickass live show. woooo.

That live show is killer. I bought that box a few years ago and don't regret it one bit.

happy 80th to willie!

agreed. he's masterful on just about every level--especially as a guitar player. (if you ever see Night & Day, an all- instrumental album he made, grab it and don't let go; you won't regret it.) my ignorant OOP: "Always on My Mind," because he totally OWNS the fucker, and accomplishes the rather amazing feat of making the jerk narrating it actually sound like someone you'd wanna go have a beer with.

― M Matos, Tuesday, July 30, 2002 8:00 PM (10 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

boom, hello, spotify

listened to stardust last night, that album is perfecto.

as much as i adore stardust, and i will always think of it as the kind of willie nelson ur-text (though when it came out i imagine its novelty was that it was anything but!) - red headed stranger is just fucking uhhhhhh-mazing on every single level

not that stardust isn't

yeah, i haven't heard em all but it seems as though he could do no wrong in the 70s...

there's something so evocative about the little song-snapshots on red headed stranger; each is perfectly constructed yet each is less than a song. they're these little glimpses into a life, into one person's story, and the album seems to invite the idea that this story is itself a little glimpse into another, larger, rolling history of the west

now the preaching is over
and the killing's begun

you are all wrong shotgun willie is his best album

(also love: me and the drummer, yesterday's wine, a bunch of the live albums, and the troublemaker)
(yeah red headed stranger is great but a little silly in parts no? and the narrative conceit doesn't work for me)

His best record is the Live at the Texas Opry disc that came with the Atlantic Sessions set.

oh that's a good one.

though as a music snob i am obliged to note that i have some bootlegs that are just as good, even better

Oh yeah, there are some better boots for sure. But as far as official releases, that's my pick.

i think i only have one willie nelson bootleg shamefully (boarding house '75, i believe?). which ones do you recommend?

My first and still favorite is probably 2/26/75 Panther Hall, Fort Worth, TX.

OTOH live at panther hall ballroom and...um... i need to look through itunes when i get home

xpost!

Great minds, etc.

no... wait.. my panther hall boot is from the mid-1960s

from his pre-outlaw period, lots of bad/good jokes between songs

Oh, I need to hear that! Mines the Red Headed Stranger tour and it SMOKES.

for some reason, it has never even occurred to me that there would be live bootlegs of Willie from the 70s. the one live album I have of his is awesome though.

btw shotgun willie has the greatest pack of ballads nelson ever wrote (or didn't):

- sad songs & waltzes
- local memory
- slow down old world (the best thing he ever wrote? might be)
- she's not for you
- a song for you

i mean what

oh and

- so much to do
- you look like the devil (which i sometimes forget is a ballad b/c it's so mean-spirited)

I love the frenetic Willie and Family Live from '78, but it's not as good as the Texas Opry or Panther Hall shows from earlier in the decade.

Shotgun is probably my favorite Willie front to back. I wouldn't really call Local Memory a ballad fwiw

also don't sleep on me and the drummer... i don't hear that one mentioned much.

if you stay away from his guest-stars-a-plenty crossover albums from the last 20-odd years, it's really hard to go completely wrong with willie albums. and there are, what, like 200 of them by this point?

yeah i guess local memory is kind of mid-tempo... actually the verses alternate between slow and mid-tempo. a nice effect btw

You know what's slept on? The IRS Tapes. Was totally surprised when I finally heard them.

saw willie play at westbury(?) in new york a few weeks back, knowing little about him beforehand, and it was a real illuminating moment. he was wonderful, especially how he played guitar. just bought a joblot of willie vinyl off ebay and hoping there's some treasure in there, particularly glad the song 'me and paul' is on one of the albums.

Toy Armadillo Stolen in NY After Nelson Concert
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 24, 2013 at 11:07 PM ET

PORT CHESTER, N.Y. — A missing toy armadillo with a connection to Willie Nelson has sparked a search in the New York suburbs.

A stuffed armadillo beloved by a member of Nelson's crew was stolen from the stage at The Capitol Theatre, in Port Chester, after a Nelson concert last Thursday, theater general manager Tom Bailey said.

Grainy video shows a woman walking onto the stage as the crew packs up, boldly grabbing the armadillo and sauntering off with it, he said. The critter is known as Ol' Dillo, he said, and is a treasured possession of Nelson's monitor engineer, Aaron Foye.

Theater workers looked through more video on Tuesday in hopes of identifying the woman, Bailey said.

A posting on Nelson's Facebook page asks for help finding the thief. And a commenter says, "We hang armadillo thieves in Texas."

Nelson's publicist, Elaine Schock, told The Journal News she was unaware of Ol' Dillo and didn't know it had been filched.

"When you go to a Willie Nelson show," she said, "the last thing you notice is an armadillo."

Nelson, singer of such hits as "Always on My Mind" and "On the Road Again," postponed his Wednesday concert in Carmel, Ind., according to his website, which didn't cite a reason.

Long profile in RS: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/all-roads-lead-to-willie-nelson-rolling-stones-definitive-profile-of-the-country-icon-20140902

Yeah, nice. So far I'm not too thrilled with Band of Brothers, which mostly seems like a cranky ol' self-pitying rich man's break-up album. But he really outdid himself last year with To All The Girls..., though it shoulda been titled With All The Girls..., or Women, 'cause of all the duets. And the mostly instrumental, mostly awesome Let's Face The Music And Dance/ The Stone piece reports he's taking guitar lessons, getting more into Django. Sure sounds like it! Heroes is the best of his alternating-styles collections, the best of those in whatever decade this is, anyway (the 2010s? Naw).

Legacy Recordings will release Willie Nelson and Sister Bobbie's December Day, the first installment of the Willie's Stash archival recordings series, on Tuesday, December 2.

An eclectic album collaboration from outlaw country legend Willie Nelson and Sister Bobbie Nelson, December Day debuts intimate new recordings of the siblings performing 18 songs they love.

Not sure how this is an archival recording and new recordings at the same time. Bummer, cause I thought it would be like Dylan's bootleg series or Neil Young's performance series. Willie must have a lot of that stuff, right? Although he did release a ton of stuff throughout his career so maybe not?

haha, yeah that is confusing.

they are new to us!

willie doesn't have the best quality control, I can't imagine he has a ton of great stuff still in the vault. he releases like five albums a year.

Yeah a lot of ostensible country music from the 40s and earlier sounds indistinguishable from blues and jazz of the era, to modern ears. Jimmie Rodgers recorded with all kinds of jazz players, incl Louis Armstrong.

Willie's talked about how some of his favorite music early on was Western Swing ( may have still been a teen when he produced a local concert for Bob Wills. which lost money, but no regrets atall) and the Hot Club Swing of Reinhardt and Grapelli. And he mixed them sometimes, like when he did that Austin City Limits ep feat. "Lady Be Good" and so on. Messing with the beat in his singing came in part from jazz, and from country singer Floyd Tillman, who also showed up on one of Willie's ACL evenings: "Baay[-a-bee!"

His guitar solos get pretty skronky sometimes too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX1WMqdSSck

Hard to beat This 1980 performance of blue eyes

Picked up a lovely copy of Phase & Stages for £1.50 at a junk shop yday. A good weekend!

Yeah, that one still passes through my head without warning. Break-up album: A-side is hers, B-side is his, equally remarkable. Spoiler: they both go on to other"---phases and stages---circles and cycles, scenes that we've all seen before. Let me show you some more."

(did we mention he won Grammys forA Beautiful Time and "Live Forever," title track of that good Billy Joe Shaver trib---his other track on there, "I Been To Georgia On A Fast Train," elso ace.)

Out since March 3, haven't yet played it:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71ZK-pVCxRL._SL1500_.jpg

Amongst the nearly 150 albums that Willie Nelson has released, he has a number of amazing full-album tributes to songwriters from Kris Kristofferson and George Gershwin to Ray Price and Cindy Walker. Adding to that list is a new studio album dedicated to songwriting legend Harlen Howard who has scores of country hits including a number that crossed over to pop and even R&B charts. A member of both the Country Music Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall Of Fame, Howard wrote hits for Ray Charles (“Busted”), Buck Owens (“I’ve Got A Tiger By The Tail”), Conway Twitty (the title track), Bobby Bare (“The Streets Of Baltimore”) and so many more. Produced by longtime collaborator Buddy Cannon and featuring a murderers’ row of crack Nashville musicians, I Don’t Know A Thing About Love is an amazing addition to Willie’s unparalleled catalog.
Featuring cover art by Micah Nelson (Willie's son), I Don't Know A Thing About Love was produced by longtime musical collaborator Buddy Cannon and debuts 10 studio performances. The band on the album includes Willie Nelson (Trigger, lead vocals), Larry Paxton (bass, tic tac bass), Lonnie Wilson (drums), Bobby Terry (acoustic guitar, electric guitar), James Mitchell (electric guitar), Mike Johnson (steel guitar), Mickey Raphael (harmonica), Jim "Moose" Brown (piano, synthesizer, B3 organ, Wurlitzer), Wyatt Beard (background vocals), and Melonie Cannon (background vocals).

Willie Nelson (Trigger, lead vocals)

.. that's a nice touch...