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Two Men With The Blues
(more) »rank: 134by: Willie Nelson/Wynton Marsalis
:Album Description:The event was simply billed as 'Willie Nelson Sings the Blues,' but the historic two-night stand on January 12 and 13, 2007 at Jazz at Lincoln Center was far more than that. Call it a summit meeting between two American icons, Willie Nelson & Wynton Marsalis, two of the most significant figures in modern-day country and jazz, who discovered common ground in their love for jazz standards and the blues. Their performance stirred the sounds of New Orleans, Nashville, Austin and New York City into a brilliantly programmed mix that was equal parts down-home and cosmopolitan, with plenty of swing and just ...
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Red Headed Stranger
(more) »rank: 1169by: Willie Nelson
: essential recording:Though this 1975 album cost Willie only $20,000 to record, it handed him the success he'd craved after years as a hit songwriter and modestly successful singer. By blending originals and vintage material, he created a timeless Western saga, one that originally left Columbia Records, who'd guaranteed him artistic control, skeptical. The label's doubts, amplified by the fact that Nelson had recorded the album in Texas with only his seven-piece touring band, evaporated after the album and two singles, 'Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain' and 'Remember Me,' became huge hits and launched Willie into the stratosphere. This enhanced version preserves ...
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16 Biggest Hits
(more) »rank: 1483by: Willie Nelson
: :A greatest-hits package from an artist who thrived on concept albums is a frightening proposition. Even the liner notes refer to him as the 'all-time #1 country album artist.' To top it off, much of Nelson's best work--Yesterday's Wine, Shotgun Willie, and Phases And Stages, for example--was commercially unsuccessful (not to mention on a different label). While Red-Headed Stranger and Stardust did make commercial inroads, they're best digested as single entities. With all that said, these Columbia chart toppers, which span from 1975 to 1989, still make for enchanting listening. By illustrating Nelson in his various moods---pop standards, honky tonk, cowboy, folk, gospel---it ...
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Stardust
(more) »rank: 1079by: Willie Nelson
: essential recording:Willie Nelson has never been one to do the safe or expected, and this Booker T. Jones-produced album of pop standards from the '30s and '40s certainly fits the profile. It's also one of the better albums of Nelson's career, allowing Willie to dip his fragile, quivering tenor all around the beat in songs like 'All of Me' and 'Unchained Melody.' Jones's organ, piano, and string arrangements are low-key and swinging (except on the almost wooden 'On the Sunny Side of the Street'), and Nelson's vocals on 'Georgia on My Mind' and 'Moonlight in Vermont' are filled with a dignified and ...
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The Essential Willie Nelson
(more) »rank: 850by: Willie Nelson
: :With 41 tracks drawn from nine record labels, the two-disc Essential Willie Nelson is impressive in its breadth. Disc one is simply superb; it begins with 1961's 'Night Life,' recorded for the obscure Bellaire label, and moves on to several of Nelson's early 1960s Liberty recordings, an overlooked gem recorded for Monument in 1964 ('I Never Cared for You'), a cherry-picked selection of his RCA and Atlantic sides, and finally his mid-1970s hits for Columbia (where he found his greatest chart success, beginning, in 1975, with the No. 1 single 'Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain'). Disc two, however, is hit-or-miss. Classics like ...
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Wanted! The Outlaws
(more) »rank: 1843by: Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Jessi Colter, Tompall Glaser
: :Less successful when it's sentimental (Waylon Jennings' 'My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys') than when it's wry (Willie Nelson's myth-puncturing 'Me and Paul'), this cash-in compilation of previously released cuts was just in time to grab the first platinum record ever awarded a country album. It's not bad, but both Jennings' contemporaneous Dreaming My Dreams and Nelson's Red Headed Stranger are more nuanced tastes of the good-bad-but-not-evil-ol'-boy lifestyle. (Not to mention much of Tompall Glaser's own Outlaw compilation.) This 1996 CD reissue adds nine more tracks from the era as well as a new Jennings-and-Nelson version of Steve Earle's 'Nowhere Road.' --Rickey Wright
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One Hell Of a Ride (4-CD Box Set)
(more) »rank: 1465by: Willie Nelson
:Album Description:This box contains a wealth of American music, plus a couple of jewels--Django Reinhardt's 'Nuages' and Jimmy Cliff's 'The Harder They Come'--from beyond these shores. Here are 100 songs commemorating Willie Nelson's incredible journey by going full circle. 'When I've Sang My Last Hillbilly Song,' leading off Disc One, was recorded in 1954 or '55; it is reprised on Disc Four's final track, updated in 2007. Between those years Nelson, a Depression era kid who grew up dirt poor in Abbott, Texas, became one of the world's most recognizable figures, in the music/entertainment business or otherwise. One Hell Of A Ride is, ...
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Pretty Paper
(more) »rank: 2242by: Willie Nelson
:Album Description:This box contains a wealth of American music, plus a couple of jewels--Django Reinhardt's 'Nuages' and Jimmy Cliff's 'The Harder They Come'--from beyond these shores. Here are 100 songs commemorating Willie Nelson's incredible journey by going full circle. 'When I've Sang My Last Hillbilly Song,' leading off Disc One, was recorded in 1954 or '55; it is reprised on Disc Four's final track, updated in 2007. Between those years Nelson, a Depression era kid who grew up dirt poor in Abbott, Texas, became one of the world's most recognizable figures, in the music/entertainment business or otherwise. One Hell Of A Ride is, ...
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Moment Of Forever
(more) »rank: 5625by: Willie Nelson
: :Countless Westerns have centered around the theme of a young turk coming into town to try to take down a legendary gunslinger. Well, for the past couple of decades, Willie Nelson has turned that imagery on its head, attracting countless younger artists eager to soak up some of his musical mojo and infuse the master's work with some of their own spirit. Moment of Forever, matches Willie with Kenny Chesney. The very idea of these seemingly disparate characters coming together is intriguing enough on paper. What really counts, however, is how it works on disc -- and work it does, with Chesney's production ...
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Phases and Stages
(more) »rank: 4827by: Willie Nelson
: essential recording:This 1974 album was actually Willie Nelson's second concept effort. He'd chronicled a man's life from cradle to grave on the brilliantly conceived but barely noticed 1972 RCA album Yesterday's Wine. Recorded in Muscle Shoals, Phases and Stages was an album he'd had in his mind since leaving RCA (where he'd first recorded several of the songs). It applied Willie's compositional insights to the emotional roller coaster that accompanies the breakup of a marriage. To achieve this, he melded new original compositions and older ones into a compelling, seamless exploration of emotions ranging from shock to anger to anguish and, finally, ...
