Nelson's best since Stardust isn't quite the rehash it seems to be. As Al Green, Janis Joplin, Elvis Presley, and even Ray Price have proven, the way to put such arrant corn across is to pull out the stops. But his inborn tact is wasted on this material. Needless to say, he also outsings Kristofferson, and without much extra in the god-given department, though the high note that climaxes "Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends" is a doozy. Rarely is there a lick you haven't heard somewhere before, but the lick always seems just a leetle different, which may be because it's so exquisitely timed and may be because it's just a leetle different. Nelson's voice has never come on more fragile or deliberate-you can almost hear him figuring out what commonplace he's going to illuminate next-and his bland sounds equally sure-footed.
These ten slow songs-maybe six special, no clinkers-were recorded thirteen years before that, apparently as demos, and the music is wonderful. It's been four years since Nelson put together an album of the mournful country love songs that earned him an outlaw's independence, and even that was a concept job. Standards that deserve the name-felt, deliberate, schmaltz-free. Basically, though, I'm real happy this record exists, not just because Nelson can be a great interpretive singer-his "Moonlight in Vermont" is a revelation-but because he's provided me with ten great popular songs that I've never had much emotional access to. I can always do without "Unchained Melody," and at times I wish he'd pick up the tempo. On this heartfelt if opportune farewell to Lefty Frizzell, his cracks and creaks and precisely conversational timing hold their own against the more conventionally exquisite singing of Merle Haggard or Frizzell himself. The amazing thing is that he gets away with it. B-Īlthough Nelson earned his legend as a songwriter, he's turning into a singer now that profit-taking time has come-does broaden one. "That Lucky Old Sun" sounds better than "Amazing Grace" Steve Fromholz's "I'd Have to Be Crazy" sounds better than Willie's "The Sound in Your Mind." Willie had better watch it-Major Artists can't grind out Product the way Country Music Stars do or people'll start thinkin' they're slippin'. Some of the individual pieces are quite nice, but the gestalt is the concept album at its most counterproductive-the lyrics render the nostalgic instrumental parts unnecessarily ironic and lose additional charm in narrative context. Ed Ward argues that the Stranger is a fantasy of vengeance rejected on side two, but all I hear is that he's redeemed by another woman there-if she leaves him, he'll kill her too. This tale of a murdering preacher wild in his abandonment has inspired much loose talk about violence and Western myth. Payoff: the two Mike Lewis string arrangements are actually climactic. What's more, Nelson's combination of soft-spoken off-key and battered honky-tonk matches the bare, responsive country music Jerry Wexler has gotten out of the Muscle Shoals regulars. On the woman's side of the breakup, try "Washing the Dishes" (soap gets in your eyes) or "Sister's Coming Home"/"Down at the Corner Beer Joint" (going home to mother as non-joke) on the man's, "It's Not Supposed to Be That Way" (but it is) and "Pick Up the Tempo" (on the rebound). A star, eh? B+Īlthough the musical concept-theme that pops up here and there is unnecessarily explicit, the songs more than justify it. And then you realize that the two you notice most-the slyly vengeful "Sad Songs and Waltzes" and the cuckold's tragedy "She's Not for You"-are also the two oldest. After a while, though, you notice that you're noticing every song. This attempt to turn Nelson into a star runs into trouble when it induces him to outshout Memphis horns or Western swing, and his unaccompanied-acoustic version of "A Song for You" takes some getting used to. Anyway, sometimes his nonsinging bowls me over. But if that's how he got to "These Are Difficult Times," maybe it was worth it. Since "perfect man" has already been and gone, he announces at the outset, "the voice of imperfect man must now be made manifest, and I have been chosen as the most likely candidate." Most of these songs-though not the two best, "Yesterday's Wine" and "Me and Paul"-are on religious themes, and on more than one he seems to be playing the part of God's messenger, which tends to limit their general relevance. The great Nashville songsmith has never bowled anyone over with his singing, and here he finds the concept to match. Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Brenda Lee.For the Good Times: A Tribute to Ray Price *.Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin **.You Don't Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker ***.Nite Life: Greatest Hits and Rare Tracks (1959-1971) A.Willie Nelson's Greatest Hits (and Some That Will Be) B+.
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