Walkin' with Willie Nelson - 90th Birthday Celebration Concert on video and record (1 Viewer)

Spirit (1996)

Nelson had well publicized issues with the IRS in the 90s and bounced between a bunch of major and indie record labels.  Spirit was the first of four albums he recorded for Island.  It's a really good and cohesive album, probably my favorite of the five so far.  It's not a funtime listen though.  The songs and their settings are mostly somber; even the love songs have an element of loss in them.  The arrangements are sparse with only Willie, Trigger, Sister Bobbie on piano, Jody Payne on rhythm guitar and the great Johnny Gimble on the fiddle.  There are no drums and minimal backing vocals.  Willie and his guitar are front and center which is just fine with me.  My only mild criticism is that four of the thirteen tracks are instrumentals.  They're lovely and add to the Tex-Mex atmosphere but it's padding to bring the set to 39 min album length.

The album is so good and consistent that it's tough to choose a favorite for the playlist.  I settled on "She Is Gone" because it typifies the quiet austerity of the record. The song has some fine acoustic picking and Willie delivers the heartbreak.

She is gone
But she was here
And her presence is still heavy in the air
Oh what a taste
Of human love
Now she's gone and it don't matter anymore

Louis is a hard dog to write about. He's shy to a fault and avoids all encounters with other dogs and humans.  There was a little scruffy terrier who wanted to say hi to Lou when we were on Valencia St. Usually Lou sees other dogs approaching and gets as far away as possible but we were stationary waiting for the light to change. All Louis could do was tuck his tail and hide behind my legs.

Spirit's album cover captures of the mood of the album perfectly. It's a black and white headshot of an unsmiling Willie wearing a bandanna and a cowboy hat with an upturned brim.  Willie looks every one of his 63 years and then some.  The album title is in lower case italics which also seems fitting (the case, not the italics).

Eephus said:

Spirit's album cover captures of the mood of the album perfectly. It's a black and white headshot of an unsmiling Willie wearing a bandanna and a cowboy hat with an upturned brim.  Willie looks every one of his 63 years and then some.  

Click to expand...

Willie hasn't changed much since that photo, which I guess is a compliment to him now.

Willie Nelson and Family (1971)

Nelson's career doesn't have as many artistic twists and turns compared to artists like Dylan or Neil Young. He was a cog in the Nashville machine before he was a father of Outlaw Country. There's a mid-career repertoire shift to include the Great American Songbook but it's still Willie.  If I was listening to his catalog chronologically, I'd be able to track his Outlaw turn as it happened. I'm not doing it this way so I had to rely on album covers to point my way.

The album cover shows 25 people standing around a camp fire. Most are too clean cut to be outlaws and they're definitely not Hippies. Willie is in the middle on the other side of the fire.  He's wearing a hat so I can't see his hair but it looks longer than when we saw him last in 1966. He's quite unassuming considering it's his record.  Without knowing any better, I'd guess the star is the character hamming it up on the right side with the in the red pants and cape.  The group includes a couple of babies and two older kids.  After looking at the picture for longer than I should have, I also noticed the hind half of a dog at the far left.

There's not much truth in the album cover.  Willie's touring band The Family don't even play on the record.  They're replaced by Nashville studio aces and an orchestra.  The rustic scene on the cover doesn't match the Countrypolitan arrangements.  Everything is very professional sounding at times like the Pop hits Glen Campbell had around the 60s-70s turn.  Willie only wrote four of the ten songs but the covers are selected tastefully.  Tracks #2 and #3 are "Sunday Morning Coming Down" and "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" and you can't do much better than that.  Willie Nelson and Family was a fun listen but it's not a great Willie Nelson record.  He tries his best but the arrangements don't fit the singer's style at all.  My song pick is "Sunday Morning Coming Down" --a not so great version of a great song by a great singer. It exemplifies everything good, bad and weird about this album.

It was a beautiful Sunday morning so Louis and I headed for Golden Gate Park.  He was a rescue from Merced County but he's become a city dog over the past year and a half.  He wasn't comfortable at first under a canopy of trees but he's gotten used to it.  I try to get him to walk on the grass of the meadows at GG Park because they're not as heavily trafficked as the urban dog parks we usually frequent.  Lou' always acts like he's on red alert when his feet on on the grass but he was eventually able to relax enough to smell his surroundings.  It was a nice long walk, about 15000 steps for me which has to be at least 8x that for Lou.  It's tough to tell because his little legs move so fast but his strides aren't very long.

Eephus said:

Willie Nelson and Family (1971)

There's a mid-career repertoire shift to include the Great American Songbook but it's still Willie. 

It was a beautiful Sunday morning so Louis and I headed for Golden Gate Park.  He was a rescue from Merced County but he's become a city dog over the past year and a half.  He wasn't comfortable at first under a canopy of trees but he's gotten used to it.  I try to get him to walk on the grass of the meadows at GG Park because they're not as heavily trafficked as the urban dog parks we usually frequent.  Lou' always acts like he's on red alert when his feet on on the grass but he was eventually able to relax enough to smell his surroundings. 

Click to expand...

Willie has said in the past that he has a great love for the Great American Songbook, because that is what he grew up on. He has said that he and his sister played the songs all the time when they were growing up. Willie's favorite singer is Frank Sinatra, and he says that Frank told him that he was his. They were good friends, and I do believe Frank is Willie's favorite singer, but I don't know if Willie was really Frank's favorite. 

Do you know anything about Lou's background prior to going to the rescue? 

simey said:

Do you know anything about Lou's background prior to going to the rescue? 

Click to expand...

Dog adoption was booming during the early months of the pandemic. That coupled with public health restrictions in SF made things pretty complicated.  @ditkaburgers had lost her job when the PPP money ran out so we put her in charge of the dog search.  As far as I could tell, the process consisted of a lot of questionnaires and waiting. 

The only things we knew about Terrell (Louis) when we adopted him was a blurry picture, his weight, his heart murmur and that he had been transferred to the SF SPCA from Merced. We all went to the shelter to check him out. The handlers brought him out and he immediately leaped into @ditkaburgers' lap.  We couldn't pass on him after that.

Eephus said:

Dog adoption was booming during the early months of the pandemic. That coupled with public health restrictions in SF made things pretty complicated.  @ditkaburgers had lost her job when the PPP money ran out so we put her in charge of the dog search.  As far as I could tell, the process consisted of a lot of questionnaires and waiting. 

The only things we knew about Terrell (Louis) when we adopted him was a blurry picture, his weight, his heart murmur and that he had been transferred to the SF SPCA from Merced. We all went to the shelter to check him out. The handlers brought him out and he immediately leaped into @ditkaburgers' lap.  We couldn't pass on him after that.

Click to expand...

His fears remind of some dogs that are rescued from puppy mills. My cat, Cole, has a heart murmur. As a matter of fact, I took him in for a checkup last week, and the vet said she could hear his heart murmur. It was the first time she has ever heard it, and I told her another vet there heard it 6 years ago, and another heard it last February. The current vet (who has been the one he has seen the most over the last 6 years) wanted me to have a bunch of test done to see why he has one, and I told her it has remained a #2 on the scale from 1 to 6, and I'd rather just monitor right now since it hasn't changed. 

needs more Red Headed Stranger...

Lovely thread. 

I'm going to try and listen to the selection of the day and maybe add some thoughts when they might be appropriate. I'll probably err on the side of silence, but I'm reading and following along. 

I really don't know much about Willie and appreciate simey's background commentary. Her comments have all been interesting reads. So are the write-ups and glimpses of Lou. 

The Spirit cover is what I think of when I think of Willie. "She Is Gone" is a bit too melancholy for me tonight. Maybe later. 

But 

Jaysus said:

needs more Red Headed Stranger...

Click to expand...

My experience with previous dog walking threads was that I appreciated an artist's classic albums more when I could put them in context of other work. 

Spirit and The Troublemaker have set the bar high.

Lou just came back from his nighttime pee and he wants to know he wasn't really scared by that traffic cone. He just wanted to generate some late night content.

Eephus said:

Dog adoption was booming during the early months of the pandemic. That coupled with public health restrictions in SF made things pretty complicated.  @ditkaburgers had lost her job when the PPP money ran out so we put her in charge of the dog search.  As far as I could tell, the process consisted of a lot of questionnaires and waiting. 

The only things we knew about Terrell (Louis) when we adopted him was a blurry picture, his weight, his heart murmur and that he had been transferred to the SF SPCA from Merced. We all went to the shelter to check him out. The handlers brought him out and he immediately leaped into @ditkaburgers' lap.  We couldn't pass on him after that.

Click to expand...

Our rescue hound, Harley, was also transferred from Merced.

My daughter was volunteering at the Salt Lake Humane Society (a no-kill shelter) while in high school. This dog was extremely skittish with almost everybody, especially men. She clearly had been abused.

Over several weeks time my daughter worked her way closer to her and soon she was the only one Harley would approach---she is a bit of a dog whisperer.  She knew she was never going to get adopted due to her fear of most humans.  She brought her home to "foster" her over the Thanksgiving holiday knowing full well that she would never be going back to the shelter.

Six years later, my daughter has moved out but Harley is still with us.

The Willie Nelson Family (2021)

The logical follow-up to Willie Nelson Family and also Willie's most recent release.  This one is truly a family affair as he shares the stage with his sister, two sons and two daughters. Billy English, the brother of longtime Family drummer Paul English also plays on the album.  Paul is credited on percussion but he died in February 2020 at the age of 87.  His death and Willie's age and health problems permeate this album. I'd characterize the theme as faith in the face of impending death; it's as much of a Gospel record as The Troublemaker was but almost 50 years on, the end of the road appears clearer than it once did.

Willie's voice sounds rougher around the edges than it did 15 years earlier on Songbird.  He passes the mic to Bobbie and Lukas to take the lead duties on four of the twelve numbers . In spite of his vocal limitations, he's able to uplift the lyrics with his integrity and belief.  Seven of the songs are Willie originals; I think they've been performed previously but I don't know his songbook well enough to be sure. There's a Carter Family number, Kristofferson's "Why Me?" and Hank's "I Saw the Light".  Bobbie sings a version of George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass" while Willie croaks along on the chorus.  The track for the playlist is the "In God's Eyes" a quiet little waltz about leading a good life.

The album cover is a family portrait. Everyone is wearing black in front of a black backdrop.  Willie stands near the center wearing a bandanna and a fancy Western shirt. He seems happy to be surrounded by people he loves.  The album title hovers above in a very thin font. The word "Family" is much bigger and brighter than "The Willie Nelson" which seems fitting because this is a collaboration.

I've mentioned Louis' penchant for hiding under the bed before. It's something he used to do all the time when he was frightened. Almost anything could set him off but mostly it was because of a loud noise, a flying insect or the impending doom of going walkies. Once he was under there, it was tough to get him out. Our old house was built when beds were much smaller so there's not much space to maneuver around it. Lou used that to his advantage by positioning himself in spots that were hard to reach. My daughter @ditkaburgers was better at being able to coax him out than we were so for a while there, we had to call her up from her apartment on almost a daily basis. We eventually settled on using one of those expandable metal shower curtain rods to get him to come out.  It was long, blunt on the end and made a rattling noise that Louis responded to.  He finally stopped hiding in October or November. It had been getting less frequent but one day it just stopped.  Until last Saturday that is. I don't know if it was because I had to (mildly) chastise Lou for not respecting Mrs. Eephus' space while she was eating a snack or because I had been yelling at the TV during the Packers-Niners game but something upset Louis. When it was time for his nighttime pee, Lou followed me from the back of the house but made a sharp right turn when passing by the bedroom.  I was in front of him so I didn't notice but when I turned to put his leash on Lou had vanished.  I went back to the bedroom door and called for him and he slid out from under the bed on his own.  Our little boy is growing up.

Well, that was long. It probably took longer than the 32 minute runtime of the album.

Eephus said:

The most remarkable thing about Louis (or at least the thing people remark about) is his silence.  He is the quietest dog I've ever met. He was like this when we got him and in the 17 months we've had him, I've only heard him bark about a dozen times while awake.

Click to expand...

Our approximately six-year-old dog (German Shepherd mix) has been with us for around three years now and he's never barked once.

BeTheMatch said:

Our approximately six-year-old dog (German Shepherd mix) has been with us for around three years now and he's never barked once.

Click to expand...

That's a good boy (or girl).  Louis doesn't like yappy dogs.

Eephus said:

That's a good boy (or girl).  Louis doesn't like yappy dogs.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't mind it, that's for sure. He is very relaxed. But he does have some odd anxiety-type things too. Like, when a fly gets in the house, I think he'd commit suicide if he could.

BeTheMatch said:

Yeah, I don't mind it, that's for sure. He is very relaxed. But he does have some odd anxiety-type things too. Like, when a fly gets in the house, I think he'd commit suicide if he could.

Click to expand...

This sounds very familiar.

I wonder if they don't bark because they're afraid of the noise. I know we project emotion onto our pups but Lou always looked surprised after the few times he's barked.

Eephus said:

There's a Carter Family number, Kristofferson's "Why Me?" and Hank's "I Saw the Light".  Bobbie sings a version of George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass" while Willie croaks along on the chorus.  The track for the playlist is the "In God's Eyes" a quiet little waltz about leading a good life.

When it was time for his nighttime pee, Lou followed me from the back of the house but made a sharp right turn when passing by the bedroom.  I was in front of him so I didn't notice but when I turned to put his leash on Lou had vanished.  I went back to the bedroom door and called for him and he slid out from under the bed on his own.  Our little boy is growing up.

Click to expand...

Every time I have seen Willie live, he has played the song "I'll Fly Away" near the end of the show, and the "family" does it with him. He usually does at least one more gospel number that have either been "I Saw The Light," "Amazing Grace" or "Will the Circle Be Unbroken." 

Another new stride for Louis. He gets a gold star. 

simey said:

Another new stride for Louis. He gets a gold star. 

Click to expand...

One step back, two steps forward

Eephus said:

The signal he makes when flustered is to shake his body like he's wet.

Click to expand...

This is typical for a dog that is feeling stressed.

Eephus said:

Songbird (2006)

Willie's 21st century catalog features a lot of collaborations.  Songbird is the album produced by Ryan Adams with backing band The Cardinals.  I had this album on my iPod when it came out but I think I liked it better then than I do now.  Something about the pairing doesn't work.  Don't get me wrong, the Cardinals are a rockin' tight outfit but much of the time Willie's 73 year old pipes are overwhelmed by the racket made by multiple guitars, a pedal steel and a Hammond organ.

The album has its charms. If you ever want to hear what it would be like if Willie fronted the Rolling Stones, the opening track "Rainy Day Blues" comes close.  The two tracks where it's mostly Willie, Trigger, Mickey Raphael's harmonica and a steel guitar are lovely.  But the singer, the band and the song seem disconnected much of the time.  The numbers include covers of Adams, Fleetwood Mac and the Grateful Dead. There's also a cover of Cohen's "Hallelujah" that never soars and an odd minor key arrangement of "Amazing Grace".  The spotlight track though is Willie's cover of Gram Parsons' "$1000 Wedding" that starts off promisingly enough until The Cardinals crash through the studio wall after the first verse. Nelson is more than capable of finding the pathos in Gram's tale but he's unable to reach the emotional depth with the band and backup singers bashing away.

Lou used to be afraid of everything when we first got him. I'm proud of the great strides he's made since then. He's calm and composed most of the time but he's still prone to visible nervousness when he encounters something unexpected.  Usually that's a dog or an object on the path ahead that he can't make out but today it was the fog. We were really socked in this morning; I don't know if it was the lack of visibility, the damp or the barometric pressure but Lou wasn't digging it.  The signal he makes when flustered is to shake his body like he's wet. He was doing that constantly in the fog this morning and when I picked him up his heart was racing.  We came back in after a quick pee and I waited til the fog burned off before our long walk.

The Songbird album cover is an Impressionist painting (or photo) of Willie with long horizontal brushstrokes and his name and album title superimposed in a Helveticaesque font. The artwork is pretty but I can't quite make out what Willie is doing in the picture.  My guess include:  smoking a joint, looking at the sunset, watching a passing boat or shopping for towels.

Click to expand...

I was not aware of this album but as a fan of Willie, Ryan and the song selections - I downloaded on Spotify and will surely be giving it a listen.

Willie's 2015 autobiography It's a Long Story: My Life is on sale today on Kindle. My non-fiction queue is already too long so I'm probably going to pass. Has anybody here read it?

Some interesting (to me) notes about the book. It's Nelson's second autobiography--his first Willie: An Autobiography came out in 1988.  The ghostwriter of the 2015 biography David Ritz has a songwriter's credit on Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing.  Ritz was also the ghostwriter for R. Kelly's autobiography :X

Eephus said:

Ritz was also the ghostwriter for R. Kelly's autobiography

Click to expand...

Did he narrate it to him from behind a closed closet door? 

I found this online while looking up albums

All 145 Willie Nelson Albums, Ranked by Texas Monthly

It's nicely formatted and much more professional than my ramblings but it contains 100% less dog content.

ETA:  Spirit was ranked #10 and Country Willie and The Troublemaker made the top 25.

Eephus said:

I found this online while looking up albums

All 145 Willie Nelson Albums, Ranked by Texas Monthly

It's nicely formatted and much more professional than my ramblings but it contains 100% less dog content.

ETA:  Spirit was ranked #10 and Country Willie and The Troublemaker made the top 25.

Click to expand...

It's nice to see Stardust ranked #3. I love that album.

Always On My Mind (1982)

Always On My Mind was one of Nelson's best selling albums spending 22 weeks at the top of the Country charts and reaching #2 on the Pop charts.  It was produced by Chips Moman who recorded some of Elvis' greatest records at his American Sound Studio in Memphis. Moman had moved his operations to Nashville by the 80s but his crew of studio musicians "The Memphis Boys" were still around and play on this album instead of Willie's usual buddies.

At first I was put off a little by the slickness of the recordings. The electric keyboards and occasional saxophone seemed particularly out of place to me but I warmed to the record as I listened more.  Willie is in excellent voice; he sounds as good here as on anything I've listened to in this thread.  There's a R&B feel to the album.  Willie's not really a R&B singer but the Blues and his idiosyncratic sense of rhythm are in everything he sings.  My favorites on this album were the songs that leaned more toward R&B rather than the classic Rock covers of "Bridge Over Troubled Water", "Let It Be Me" and "A Whiter Shade of Pale".  I added "Last Thing I Needed First This Morning" to the playlist.  Willie singing in front of an electric piano proves you don't have to shout to be soulful.  He hauls out Trigger near the end for a guitar solo that brings a great song to a beautiful end. 

I liked the album more than its cover.  It's a portrait of Willie standing in front of a canyon.  He's wearing a down parka and a turquoise headband that looks like it was airbrushed on. Willie is looking straight at the camera with a look in his eye that's a little too intense for my liking.  The album went quadruple platinum so what do I know.

Even though Louis hates it, I haven't given up trying to get him to interact with other dogs.  I lead him around so we pass through as many parks as possible.  Lou is always on high alert when we're in a park because you never know when another dog is going to divebomb him.  Today I stopped off to chat with the guys day drinking in Hayes Green.  I must have been hanging out for five minutes talking sports and some neighborhood gossip.  Lou stood at my feet with his tail down and ears back.  I could see him watching the other dogs playing on the grass but none approached him.  Nevertheless, he started to get agitated after a while; he was really happy when we left.

A bit of a different song that I now think of every time I hear or read the name Willie Nelson...

"Willie Nelson" by the LACS

Jayrod said:

A bit of a different song that I now think of every time I hear or read the name Willie Nelson...

"Willie Nelson" by the LACS

Click to expand...

I couldn't be further outside the target demographic for Country Rap so weigh my opinion accordingly.

This song sucks but the hook line "I got a truck so high I call it Willie Nelson" is kind of genius.

...And Then I Wrote (1962)

I probably should have started the thread with this album since it was Willie's debut. He was 29 when it came out and had working as a songwriter  for four years.  Several of his songs had been hits for other artists; all are re-recorded here with the exception of "Night Life".

There was no template for a Willie Nelson album yet so the producers gave him pretty much the same treatment they'd give any other new singer/songwriter in 1962 Nashville.  It's all very competent and professional with members of the Nashville A-Team and the Wrecking Crew among the studio musicians.  Many of the arrangements are similar with mid-tempo chicka boom rhythms, close harmony backup singers and plinking right hand piano fills.  But Willie is able to quietly to penetrate the pablum and connect with the listener.  A lot of Nelson's style seems to be already in place on arrival. His unmistakable phrasing and sense of swing are much the same no matter how much reverb was added to it.

The song list is unusually consistent for a debut album.  I liked all of them in spite of their dated arrangements. Excluding the better known Country classics, my favorites included the Rockabilly flavored "Three Days" and the breakup plea "Undo the Right".  However, the playlist song is Willie's first hit single "Touch Me" which features a wonderful vocal that has that directness that I love in Willie's singing.

The album cover is as generic as some of the arrangements. Willie's name gets second billing after "...visual sound STEREO".  The album title is written in pink script for some reason. Willie looks like the world's oldest 29 year old but his hair is perfect.  The song list is also on the front of the album as was common at the time.

Louis and I walked up to the Haight-Ashbury today.  We usually stay one block over on Page St. because there's less people but I wanted to check if there had been any recent changes on the other end of Haight.  We ended up following a dude on skateboard pulling a big red rollerboard suitcase behind him.  My other dogs considered all skaters as mortal enemies.  Lou doesn't seem to mind the noise and vibration of small wheels at all.  He followed about 3' behind the suitcase until the guy sped away. 

Lou hid under the bed again today while Mrs. Eephus and I were in the back of the house for a few minutes.  He came right out when I called him but his heart was beating fast.  No idea what scared him.

Eephus said:

while Mrs. Eephus and I were in the back of the house for a few minutes

Click to expand...

Is that what we're calling it now?

Eephus said:

The album title is written in pink script for some reason. Willie looks like the world's oldest 29 year old but his hair is perfect.  The song list is also on the front of the album as was common at the time

Click to expand...

Let's just say that Willie will never be known for great album covers, if the early ones are any indication (besides Spirit. That was a good cover).

And pablum as the word for the backing band and music seems right. The opener, "Touch Me" is begging to be accompanied by nothing but Willie and guitar. I do not like the upbeat music against the backdrop of his voice and the blues.

You're spot-on that his phrasing (there's that word) and the blues and swing in his voice does not match the music. This was meant to be unaccompanied, really. They're trying to make social music and he's trying to pour his soul out. Dinner chatter, dinner chatter over the patter of his heart. These are great songs. I'm really impressed in how he writes, but the delivery here is all off with that upbeat racket in the background. 

I guess I'll put this here for Willie, about his effort against the infernal backing band. 

I'd like to get even with you
'Cause you're leavin'
But sad songs and waltzes
Aren't selling this year

eta* I came across a very odd version of "Under Pressure," originally by Bowie and Queen while cruising Spotify. It's done by Willie and Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Now, nobody is a big as sucker for Karen O's voice as I, and she does the Freddie Mercury part in a slowed down, somewhat acoustic version of the song, so I kept listening. Willie is soft of voice and it makes for an interesting, slow version with an acoustic and steel guitar backing. Both Karen O and Willie sound game for it, actually. I'm not sure I love it, but good for them. It's a fair effort, all things considered. 

rockaction said:

eta* I came across a very odd version of "Under Pressure," originally by Bowie and Queen while cruising Spotify (okay, no pun intended, folks). It's done by Willie and Karen O of the Yeah Yeahs Yeahs. Now, nobody is a big as sucker for Karen O's voice as I, and she does the Freddie Mercury part in a slowed down, somewhat acoustic version of the song, so I kept listening. Willie is soft of voice and it makes for an interesting, slow version with an acoustic and steel guitar backing. Both Karen O and Willie sound game for it, actually. I'm not sure I love it, but good for them. It's a fair effort, all things considered. 

Click to expand...

Well I guess that was better than "My truck's so high I call it Willie Nelson". 

I've been consciously avoiding Willie's many collaboration albums but I expect to find a better blending of voices than on "Under Pressure". They never connect for me when they sing together. Karen O' is fine on her parts but Willie's voice is ragged; it's noticeably rougher and weaker than on The Willie Nelson Family album.

Just a few of the people that Willie has collaborated with.........Snoop Dogg, Sheryl Crow, Julio Iglesias, Ringo Starr, Waylon Jennings, Dolly Parton, Leon Russell, Sinead O'Connor, Norah Jones, Wynton Marsalis, Steven Tyler, Alison Krauss, Santana, Stephen Colbert, Merle Haggard, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Keith Richards, Ray Charles, Toby Keith, Dyan Cannon, Beach Boys, U2, Bob Dylan, Lionel Richie, Emmylou Harris, Amy Irving, Neil Young, Dave Matthews, Hootie & the Blowfish, Kid Rock, Lil Wayne, Ray Price, Carrie Underwood, Barbra Streisand, Bon Jovi, plus the USA for Africa bunch. 

Eephus said:

Well I guess that was better than "My truck's so high I call it Willie Nelson"

Click to expand...

lol. That's a ringing endorsement. I love that line, actually. Country rap, though, I could get all "fancy-like" without. I'd be happy without ever hearing Florida Georgia Line ever again. 

But you're probably right in your criticism. I thought his voice was exceptionally weak, I just didn't really want to say so. She doesn't sound as convincing as Mercury with the "dee da days," either. Sell it a little more, Karen. 

I posted more for curiosity seekers (and like I said, I'm a sucker for Karen O) than endorsement. 

UncleZen said:

Just a few of the people that Willie has collaborated with.........Snoop Dogg, Sheryl Crow, Julio Iglesias, Ringo Starr, Waylon Jennings, Dolly Parton, Leon Russell, Sinead O'Connor, Norah Jones, Wynton Marsalis, Steven Tyler, Alison Krauss, Santana, Stephen Colbert, Merle Haggard, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Keith Richards, Ray Charles, Toby Keith, Dyan Cannon, Beach Boys, U2, Bob Dylan, Lionel Richie, Emmylou Harris, Amy Irving, Neil Young, Dave Matthews, Hootie & the Blowfish, Kid Rock, Lil Wayne, Ray Price, Carrie Underwood, Barbra Streisand, Bon Jovi, plus the USA for Africa bunch. 

Click to expand...

Willie put out an Lady Bird Johnson tribute album with a guy named Don Cherry.  I was excited thinking it might be either the hockey announcer or Ornette Coleman's trumpet player (Neneh and Eagle Eye's dad).  Unfortunately Don Cherry is a Texas singer who used to perform with Ray Conniff. It also isn't on Spotify

Eephus said:

I was excited thinking it might be either the hockey announcer or Ornette Coleman's trumpet player

Click to expand...

 I suppose those two gentleman share little in common save for maybe love of a good suit, taste varying of course. 

rockaction said:

 I suppose those two gentleman share little in common save for maybe love of a good suit, taste varying of course. 

Click to expand...

Hockey people have their own sense of humour, thus Cherry's nickname being "Grapes".

No entry today.  Louis got his business done early in the morning and it was a nicer day for a bike ride than a dog walk.  I'm taking him out now for a short walk but Willie never released any EPs.

Texas In My Soul (1968)

I was told Louis was moping when I was out riding earlier. That's probably because he's happiest when we're all together but since it's possible Lou was missing Willie, I found this 27 minute album and headed up the hill.  We're back and he's burrowed under a blanket now.

Texas In My Soul is a concept album released in commemoration of the 1968 world's fair in San Antonio.  All of the songs are about Texas, its history or one or more of its cities.  Unfortunately there are no Nelson originals among the eleven songs.  I had fun listening to it but it's not a very good album.  Some of the songs are just ridiculous--even Willie can't to put over the civic boosterism of "Dallas"

Take a ride on her Central Expressway, breeze down the LBJ
Look her over good and you'll have to say
She's the best dressed city in the USA,

There's also a spoken word piece with Willie reading one of William Travis' letters from the Alamo. It would have been bad without any accompaniment but putting some vibraphone chords behind him was a bizarre musical decision.

The best songs are the ones influenced by Western Swing music of Ernest Tubb and Bob Wills.  Willie sings these in a deep baritone without much of his usual personality perhaps in deference to Tubb.  "Who Put All My Ex's in Texas" is a silly little number but it typifies the charms of this strange record.  So it goes on the playlist.  Another fun fact about this album is that comedic singer Ray Stevens ("The Streak", "Gitarzan") plays keyboards on this album.

The album cover is a doozie.  It's a crude painting of some of the attractions from the fair on the left with the Alamo and a lot of unused white space on the right.  There's a headshot of a grinning Willie smack dab in the middle but his face is the color of a Texas Longhorns home jersey.  There's a star up above with the title, Willie's name and the song listing superimposed on it.  It's a sad piece of graphic design but it suits the record.

Eephus said:

The best songs are the ones influenced by Western Swing music of Ernest Tubb and Bob Wills

Click to expand...

Back when I was getting into country in my stoner years, these were big names. Western Swing was -- what (?) -- the mid-forties or so? 

Just looked it up. Yeah, it was. That might be an interesting discussion. I wonder if anybody on the board is into Western Swing. It's a big deal in the development of country music because of the beat, and its popularity prepped people for rockabilly and rock n' roll in the rural areas of the U.S., if I'm not mistaken. Interesting, because even though Willie is indebted in some way to its popularity, he'd always struck me as more Americana folk, the country part of which appears to have been subsumed into big-C "Country music." 

rockaction said:

Back when I was getting into country in my stoner years, these were big names. Western Swing was -- what (?) -- the mid-forties or so? 

Just looked it up. Yeah, it was. That might be an interesting discussion. I wonder if anybody on the board is into Western Swing. It's a big deal in the development of country music because of the beat, and its popularity prepped people for rockabilly and rock n' roll in the rural areas of the U.S., if I'm not mistaken. Interesting, because even though Willie is indebted in some way to its popularity, he'd always struck me as more Americana folk, the country part of which appears to have been subsumed into big-C "Country music." 

Click to expand...

This was the first record in the project with any traces of Western Swing (unless I'm forgetting something).  I'm sure it's a type of music he listened to while growing up in Texas. His note and time bending must have come from somewhere.

Willie did a collaboration with with Asleep at the Wheel in 2009 that's straight up Western Swing.  I liked it a lot at the time and I may get around to it.  I'm also curious whether his records with Merle Haggard go down that musical avenue.

Eephus said:

Always On My Mind (1982)

Always On My Mind was one of Nelson's best selling albums spending 22 weeks at the top of the Country charts and reaching #2 on the Pop charts.  It was produced by Chips Moman who recorded some of Elvis' greatest records at his American Sound Studio in Memphis. Moman had moved his operations to Nashville by the 80s but his crew of studio musicians "The Memphis Boys" were still around and play on this album instead of Willie's usual buddies.

At first I was put off a little by the slickness of the recordings. The electric keyboards and occasional saxophone seemed particularly out of place to me but I warmed to the record as I listened more.  Willie is in excellent voice; he sounds as good here as on anything I've listened to in this thread.  There's a R&B feel to the album.  Willie's not really a R&B singer but the Blues and his idiosyncratic sense of rhythm are in everything he sings.  My favorites on this album were the songs that leaned more toward R&B rather than the classic Rock covers of "Bridge Over Troubled Water", "Let It Be Me" and "A Whiter Shade of Pale".  I added "Last Thing I Needed First This Morning" to the playlist.  Willie singing in front of an electric piano proves you don't have to shout to be soulful.  He hauls out Trigger near the end for a guitar solo that brings a great song to a beautiful end. 

I liked the album more than its cover.  It's a portrait of Willie standing in front of a canyon.  He's wearing a down parka and a turquoise headband that looks like it was airbrushed on. Willie is looking straight at the camera with a look in his eye that's a little too intense for my liking.  The album went quadruple platinum so what do I know.

Even though Louis hates it, I haven't given up trying to get him to interact with other dogs.  I lead him around so we pass through as many parks as possible.  Lou is always on high alert when we're in a park because you never know when another dog is going to divebomb him.  Today I stopped off to chat with the guys day drinking in Hayes Green.  I must have been hanging out for five minutes talking sports and some neighborhood gossip.  Lou stood at my feet with his tail down and ears back.  I could see him watching the other dogs playing on the grass but none approached him.  Nevertheless, he started to get agitated after a while; he was really happy when we left.

Click to expand...

This was my go to Willie album for years. I love "Last Thing I needed First Thing This Morning" I believe this was the tour I saw him on in the 80s.

rockaction said:

Back when I was getting into country in my stoner years, these were big names. Western Swing was -- what (?) -- the mid-forties or so? 

Just looked it up. Yeah, it was. That might be an interesting discussion. I wonder if anybody on the board is into Western Swing. It's a big deal in the development of country music because of the beat, and its popularity prepped people for rockabilly and rock n' roll in the rural areas of the U.S., if I'm not mistaken. Interesting, because even though Willie is indebted in some way to its popularity, he'd always struck me as more Americana folk, the country part of which appears to have been subsumed into big-C "Country music." 

Click to expand...

when my BFF & i got done with our tour of New Mexico's ghost towns, then Indian ruins, we were looking for another reason for our gleesome foursome to tour odd corners of our new home for scant reason. we had popped an Asleep at the Wheel tape into the car player and it triggered the memory that someone told me that there had been dozens of dance halls in the state and the Texas Playboys had played perty much every blasted one of em. i was technically an employee of UNM, so i went thru their archives and found some materials. there were mud hovels, quonset huts & abandoned postoffices in places that werent actually places (at least a half-dozen on long abandoned sections of the ol' Rte 66 (which became our next quest) and, shonuff, every last one of em that still had walls had a signed picture of Bob Wills on it 

Texas In My Soul is the only time Willie recorded the old cowboy lament "The Streets of Laredo".  It's a song he was born to sing but the version of this album is kind of listless.

Eephus said:

Well I guess that was better than "My truck's so high I call it Willie Nelson". 

I've been consciously avoiding Willie's many collaboration albums

Click to expand...

I’ve never been an “album guy” - I’ve talked about this in other music threads and I know it’s my failing and I’m missing out.  Willie’s catalog is no different for me.  But of his material that I do know, I like and enjoy his collaborations much more than his own material.  The Highwaymen, Ray Charles, hell To All the Girls I Loved Before is pretty damn solid.

Great thread - hope the pup is doing well.

I’ll share one quick story - 30 years ago my grandmother, “Nana”, and I used to drive each summer from Atlanta to the Georgia coast for me to spend a couple weeks working on my Uncle’s crab boat.  Seven Spanish Angels must have been played a hundred times during those trips - play, rewind the cassette, play it again.  Conway Twitty, Merle and others were played but that song is imprinted on my brain.

Nana passed last year at 100 years old.  I listened to that song on the drive to and from the funeral.  I got to share during my eulogy this small story about our trips and the song still makes me smile even while it gets dusty in the room every time I play it.  Love you Nana.

Born For Trouble (1990)

I was looking through Willie's 90s albums on Spotify but he was less active in the studio than the 70s or 80s when he was releasing two or three albums per year.  A lot of his 90s albums were collaborations which narrowed my options even further.  I went with Born For Trouble mostly because of its album cover which turned out to be a mistake.  Since we're on the album cover, it's a black and white photo of Willie astride a big Harley Davidson cruiser. He's not really riding it because the picture was taken indoors.  Willie's not a big man and it appears to be too much bike for him.  His beard is white, his hair is dark and he's wearing a bandanna.  The album title is in a faux Harley Davidson logo motif which would probably look rad on his tour merchandise.

The album itself was another disappointment.  The songs have none of the badass attitude of the cover. It's a 90s middle of the road Pop Country sound which is much better than 2020s Pop Country but still not a good fit for Willie.  There are synths and strings and lots of backing vocals to smooth out any rough edges.  He didn't write any of the songs this time out; three numbers were written by young (at the time) Texas songwriter Beth Nielsen Chapman who has some fine albums as a solo artist.  There's a song called "Ten With a Two" which is about taking women home from bars

I ain't never gone to bed with an uglier woman
But I sure woke up with a few
Last night I came in at two with a ten
But at ten I woke up with a two

It's kind of an odd flex for a 57 year old man but I guess he was single at the time.

As usual, Willie's singing in the best thing about the record.  He takes a sappy piano ballad "You Decide" and sings the lyrics with a quiet honesty that's heartbreaking.  Today's song for the playlist is "The Piper Came Today" a sad song written by a guy with the musical name of Chester Lester.  The chorus reminds me of "He Stopped Loving Her Today" but not as good.

Little Louis is kind of subdued today.  He's not a high energy dog by any stretch of the imagination. I was out for a few hours after our walk to run some errands and go for a bike ride.  Lou hasn't let me leave his sight since I got home and is currently curled up against my hip.  Our dogs used to have stricter rules about access to our furniture but Lou pretty much has the run of the house.  At least we're sure he's not going to chew on a pillow or something.

I think I'm ready for a classic Willie Nelson this weekend.  The last two have been poor.

Eephus said:

Today's song for the playlist is "The Piper Came Today" a sad song written by a guy with the musical name of Chester Lester.  The chorus reminds me of "He Stopped Loving Her Today" but not as good.

Little Louis is kind of subdued today.  He's not a high energy dog by any stretch of the imagination. I was out for a few hours after our walk to run some errands and go for a bike ride.  Lou hasn't let me leave his sight since I got home and is currently curled up against my hip.  Our dogs used to have stricter rules about access to our furniture but Lou pretty much has the run of the house.  At least we're sure he's not going to chew on a pillow or something.

Click to expand...

I like that song. I've never heard until now. 

Does Louis go under the bed when nobody is home, or do you know where he goes? He is attached to you.

simey said:

I like that song. I've never heard until now. 

Does Louis go under the bed when nobody is home, or do you know where he goes? He is attached to you.

Click to expand...

He probably does which doesn't concern me that much if it brings him comfort. 

I was always the dove of the house when Lou was hiding every day.  I wanted him to be able to come out on his own. The womenfolk thought he was somehow in danger and brought out sticks and flashlights to coax him out.

It was ridiculous at times at the beginning but he's gotten a lot better.  We nicknamed his spot under the bed as his office.  We have hardwood floors so it must not have been comfortable. I'd lay out towels but he usually didn't use them. He never peed or tore up anything up under the bed, he just laid there.

Shotgun Willie (1973)

I wanted an album of known quality after the last couple of records, so I loaded up Shotgun Willie in the chamber.  Nelson's three album run of this, Phases and Stages and Red Headed Stranger was a high point in his career.   Shotgun Willie was the first album he recorded after the end of his RCA contract and his move from Nashville to Austin.  Listening to a few of his RCA records earlier in this thread gives me greater appreciation of the changes in Willie's music.  Because it I listened to Shotgun Willie outside of this context, it's a rather conventional sounding Country album.  It's a major label (Atlantic) record produced by a big-name industry vet in Arif Mardin.  There are still strings, horns, lots of background vocals and even some electric piano to sweeten the sound.  But the big difference is that Willie sounds like he's singing directly to the listener instead of being trapped in a huge reverberating sound chamber.  His voice and guitar are given a more organic sound that is a better match for Willie's gifts than the big Nashville sound.

The majority of the twelve songs were written by Nelson and the others suit him well. There are a couple of Bob Wills songs for Swing lovers and a couple of Leon Russell tunes. The album closing "Song for You" is just Willie and Trigger, nothing more is needed.  The tracklist includes some of Willie's best loved songs like "Whiskey River", "Stay All Night" and the title track.  I chose "Sad Songs and Waltzes" for the playlist; it's a self-referential song about the end of his second marriage to Shirley that seems to symbolize where he was at this important point of his career.

I'm writing a song all about you
A true song as real as my tears
But you've no need to fear it
'Cause no one will hear it
'Cause sad songs and waltzes
Aren't selling this year

The cover isn't as great as the music but it's probably the most outlaw thing about the album.  It's two identical pictures of a smiling bearded Willie wearing a black cowboy hat.  They've been cropped and inserted into an image of a double barrelled shotgun.  I didn't recognize what it was at first because the 3D perspective is weird.  Maybe that's what it looks like to be staring at a barrel of a shotgun pointed at you but I hope to never find out.  At least the name and album title are printed in a cool looking script.

Louis spent the night at @ditkaburgers place last night as does about two or three nights per week.  He always seems a little more needy the following day but maybe that's my ego projecting.  We had a nice walk without any dog-related incidents although there were a few encounters that were too close for his liking.  He would be happy if dogs adopted  the 6' social distancing convention. We're going to visit some friends tonight but they said it was OK to bring Lou along.