Willie Nelson: Rarities Vol 1 (Great American Music/Southbound)

 |   |  <1 min read

Willie Nelson: I've Seen All This World I Care to See
Willie Nelson: Rarities Vol 1 (Great American Music/Southbound)

Another week, another Willie album? (Previously here the joke was another month, another Willie but . . .)

So it has seemed lately -- but this isn't new material: here are songs by Willie from betweeen 1959 and '65,  11 of them just solo with guitar, the rest with a small band.

The solo pieces -- only one breaking the two minute mark -- are lovely demos for others to discover and even at this stage Nelson had identified his milieu: poetically concise and melancholy reflection on love lost. A couple of these -- notably Both Ends of the Candle -- were in the excellent Rhino three-CD set Classic and Unreleased of '94 in different versions, as was the wonderful band version Healing Hands of Time. (The band here is uncredited but included Jimmy Day on lachrymose steel guitar, and is here in what sounds like a remastered version.)

As with the Dylan Folksinger's Choice album, here is an emerging artist who has already found a distinctive and personal voice.

Lot of Willie in the world, but this is something special if you haven't heard his pre-fame material. 

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

JessB: Feels Like Home (digital outlets)

JessB: Feels Like Home (digital outlets)

It is perhaps unusual and maybe even unseemly that a man of a certain age (plus a decade or more) should be so taken with a young woman rapper. But from the first... > Read more

Lila Downs, Shake Away (EMI)

Lila Downs, Shake Away (EMI)

The new album by the US-Hispanic singer should get a good reception here given her popularity at the last Womad (see tag for interview) -- but this one sees her embracing a more centrist rock... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

GUEST SONGWRITER DAVID MORRIS OF BRITAIN'S RED RIVER DIALECT shares the background to the band's new album Broken Stay Open Sky

GUEST SONGWRITER DAVID MORRIS OF BRITAIN'S RED RIVER DIALECT shares the background to the band's new album Broken Stay Open Sky

When writing the last Red River Dialect album, which was called Tender Gold and Gentle Blue (2015, Paradise of Bachelors, through Southbound in New Zealand), my everyday was... > Read more

Various Artists: Alligator Records 45th Anniversary Collection (Alligator/Southbound)

Various Artists: Alligator Records 45th Anniversary Collection (Alligator/Southbound)

The Alligator collections are always worth hearing because they serve two purposes; a catch-up with the Chicago label's recent signings and some terrific tracks from the label's enormous and... > Read more