With the deaths of country music icons Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash in the past year-and-a-half, there is perhaps further reason to celebrate the seventieth birthday of Willie Nelson, their friend and contributor, a birthday at which he is still recording and touring at a regular clip.
Nelson is one of the most unique figures in American music: a troubadour and songwriter who has provided country music with some of its best songs and one of its most iconic personas. After penning classics like “Hello Walls” and “Crazy” in 1960s Nashville, Nelson split from the town and its establishment, only to emerge as a longhaired, weed-smoking “outlaw” whose music both revisited the best of the genre’s characteristics and challenged the serious level of jive that had infected this otherwise rich art form. By doing so, he also became a major star, and his star status perhaps reached its pinnacle with his 1983 crossover smash “Always On My Mind,” a gentle love ballad that sold millions and won a Grammy.
In celebration of his birthday, most of his Columbia Records albums, which represent the majority of his crucial artistic period from the early 1970s through the 1980s, have been reissued. The latest group of reissues centers around this early-’80s renaissance. Aside from Always On My Mind, the album from which the namesake hit came from, other releases include Pancho and Lefty, his collaboration with fellow country giant Merle Haggard, and an expanded version of his 1982 Greatest Hits collection.
Chips Moman, a Memphis soul impresario who brought along some of his favorite session musicians from his American Studios for the recordings, produced both Always On My Mind and Pancho and Lefty. It is no surprise that Willie covers the R&B classic “Do Right Woman,” written by Dan Penn, on Always and even the most country selections on both collections simmer with the quiet intensity of the American Studios band.
While both albums had their biggest single success with their title tracks — “Pancho and Lefty” was written by legendary Texan songwriter Townes Van Zandt — both albums have definite highlights aside from the big hits, and the spotlight is most effective when it shines on the voices. When Willie flies solo on “Do Right Woman” or on a slight re-arrangement of “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” or when he is paired with the similarly silver tongue of Haggard, as on the sweetly tragicomic “Reasons To Quit.”
That said, neither album, even with sparkling remastered sound and bonus tracks, ever rises to the level of Nelson’s highest work. In his 1970s heyday, when he recorded classics like Red Headed Stranger, Stardust and Phases and Stages he possessed an edgy rambunctious feel to match his graceful style. This rambunctious nature is strangely absent on both Always On My Mind and Pancho And Lefty, and the albums suffer from their basically all-ballad format.
This is perhaps why Greatest Hits is, ironically, the biggest revelation. It only serves to further reconfirm Willie Nelson’s status as one of the best artists in any genre of modern music. His songs range from the rowdy (“Whiskey River,” “Stay A Little Longer,” “On The Road Again”) to the deeply affecting (“Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain,” “Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground”). The arrangements are uniformly superb, including those from Stardust, his masterpiece album of standards, constructed by another Memphis soul legend, Booker T. Jones.
What is perhaps most immediately striking about the songs on this collection is how truly rich and versatile Willie Nelson is as a singer. Whether throwing cares to the wind or burrowing deep into heartaches past and present, Nelson’s instrument is among the most distinctive in style and tone of any on record. He shifts between soft crooning and rollicking light-heartedness with an ease that both belies his deep craft and creates a consistent portrait of a song interpreter of the highest quality.
When paired with the powerful purr of his unique guitar skills, his style is simply enchanting. Perhaps the best example is the beautiful lament “Angel Flying Close To The Ground” and the hilarious character-portrait-cum-love-song, “I’d Have To Be Crazy.” Yes, of course, Willie Nelson is one of country’s best songwriters, but Greatest Hits makes a case that it is his voice that is his most effective tool in building a career that continues to be among the most enduring and respected in American music.
