Willie Nelson - Shotgun Willie / The Complete Atlantic Sessions (Album / Box Set Review)

Willie Nelson - The Complete Atlantic Sessions

Willie Nelson
The Complete Atlantic Sessions

Part One: Shotgun Willie

(Atlantic/Rhino)

The Music Box's #3 boxed set of 2006

First Appeared in The Music Box, July 2006, Volume 13, #7

Written by John Metzger

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Willie Nelson�s tenure at Atlantic Records may have been brief, but he made the most of his opportunities. After years of toiling behind the scenes in Nashville, where Ray Price, Patsy Cline, and others turned his songs into major hits while his own recordings largely were ignored, Nelson moved back to Texas where he began to refocus his energy and refine his style. Although he wouldn�t become a star until he joined Columbia�s roster and issued his 1975 country classic Red Headed Stranger, his preceding albums for Atlantic (Shotgun Willie and Phases and Stages) were equally ambitious and significant. Each has been remastered, reissued, and augmented with a plethora of bonus material as part of the three-disc box set The Complete Atlantic Sessions. Rounding out the collection is Live at the Texas Opry House, a concert outing that never made it to market, though large portions of it appeared on The Classic, Unreleased Collection. All in all, The Complete Atlantic Sessions lovingly turns the spotlight on an oft-overlooked period of Nelson�s career, and what follows is a closer examination of its components.

Willie Nelson - Shotgun WillieWillie Nelson
Shotgun Willie

(Atlantic/Rhino)

It somehow seems fitting that the same year in which Willie Nelson fully returned to his Texas-based roots � by paying tribute to songwriter Cindy Walker on the stellar You Don�t Know Me � would also see his 1973 gem Shotgun Willie given its proper due. Walker, of course, wrote many of the tunes that are affiliated with Texas legend Bob Wills, and throughout Shotgun Willie, Nelson tipped his hat to his heritage by covering the Wills/Walker-penned Bubbles in My Beer as well as the Wills/Tommy Duncan standard Stay All Night (Stay a Little Longer). For all intents and purposes, the two albums go hand in hand: the former being a crucial reminder of where Nelson obtained his genre-bending style, the latter being the effort on which he first fully embraced it.

Although Yesterday�s Wine hinted at the new directions that he would explore, Shotgun Willie was the key that unlocked the next phase of Nelson�s career. Freed from the confines of Nashville and signed to Atlantic Records� fledgling country music division, he suddenly had more freedom than ever before to package his material however he saw fit. Backed by his regular touring band � which was augmented with Doug Sahm, Waylon Jennings, Larry Gatlin, and David Bromberg, among others � Nelson injected country with a hefty dose of jazz, blues, gospel, folk, and rock. Hinting at the changes to come, he took a final parting shot at the Nashville establishment that he had left behind by singing on the title track, which opened the set: "You can�t make a record if you ain�t got nothin� to say/You can�t play music if you don�t know nothin� to play."

Granted, there was a touch of sparkle to the production of Shotgun Willie, particularly the string arrangements that adorned Slow Down Old World and So Much to Do, the horns that drifted through the title track, and the occasional backing vocals throughout the endeavor that forever will tie it to the early �70s. Nevertheless, the collection also was a far cry from the sort of syrupy, formulaic products that Nashville was accustomed to making. The arrangements were pliant, the rhythms were freewheeling and loose, and the guitar solos � be they Nelson�s acoustic flights; James Clayton Day�s weepy, pedal steel excursions; or the extra bite provided by the electric guitar accompaniments of Bromberg and Sahm � rippled with an Americana edginess that fed a rock �n� roll audience that had been primed by Bob Dylan�s Nashville Skyline and the Grateful Dead�s American Beauty and Workingman�s Dead. Although Nelson would go on to make better albums, Shotgun Willie was the place where his ideas began to coalesce, and taken in conjunction with Waylon Jennings� Honky Tonk Heroes, the country music world was turned on its ear.

Rather than offering alternate (and largely inferior) renditions of songs that appeared on the original album, the bonus material featured on the newly refurbished rendition of Shotgun Willie is predominately composed of outtakes. The fact that just over half of the extra tracks were issued previously on The Classic, Unreleased Collection makes them a little less revelatory than they otherwise might have been, but from the haunted devastation that Nelson brings to Both Ends of the Candle as well as a solo interpretation of Leon Russell�s My Cricket and Me to the stinging, swinging blues of Floyd Tillman�s I Gotta Have Something I Ain�t Got, there�s plenty here into which casual and diehard fans alike can sink their teeth. starstarstarstar

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This is the first installment of a three-part series,
which will examine
The Complete Atlantic Sessions album by album.
The entire set is rated:
starstarstarstar

Part Two: Phases and Stages

Part Three: Live at the Texas Opry House

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The Complete Atlantic Sessions is available from Barnes & Noble.
To order, Click Here!

Shotgun Willie is available from Barnes & Noble.
To order, Click Here!

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Ratings

1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!

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Copyright � 2006 The Music Box