Nelson

As a songwriter and performer, Willie Nelson played a vital role in post-rock & roll country music. Although he didn't become a star until the mid-'70s, Nelson spent the '60s writing songs that became hits for stars like Ray Price ("Night Life"), Patsy Cline ("Crazy"), Faron Young ("Hello Walls"), and Billy Walker ("Funny How Time Slips Away"), as well as releasing a series of records on Liberty and RCA that earned him a small but devoted cult following.

This CD commemorates Willie Nelson's 70th Birthday (April 30, 2003).

The catalog of Willie Nelson is so vast and rich that assembling an "essential" collection of only one or two discs seems nearly impossible. RCA's single-disc 1995 attempt was admirable and worthy, but doomed by space limitations. With a bit more room to move, Legacy's roomier two-disc collection is about close as anyone could hope to come. We get the full view of the great singer/songwriter's artistic journey.

"Hello Walls" and the evergreen "Crazy" hail from the days when Nelson was tooling around Nashville as a songwriter for hire but mystifyingly unable to connect as a solo artist. His transformation into a counterculture icon via the '70s "outlaw country" movement is marked by the likes of "Me and Paul" and "Bloody Mary Morning." His tremendous skill as in interpreter can be heard in such standards as "Blue Skies" and "Georgia on Mind," which helped make him a crossover success in the STARDUST era. Latter-day collaborations with everyone from Aerosmith ("One Time Too Many") to U2 ("Slow Dancing") show Willie's mercurial, eclectic nature. Add it all up and a portrait comes together of a man whose artistic vision has carried him across decades and stylistic shifts aplenty and seen him through in style.

Recorded between 1961 & 2002.

Oliver Nelson - The Argo, Verve and Impulse Big Band Studio Sessions (1962-67) {6CD Box Set Mosaic MD6-233 rel 2006}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 2.57 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 944 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 167 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1962-67, 2006 Mosaic Records / UMG | MD6-233
Jazz / Hard Bop / Post Bop / Big Band

Oliver Nelson was one of the more distinctive arrangers to be active in jazz, the studios, and popular music of the '60s. While most Nelson reissues focus on his always-excellent saxophone playing (whether on tenor or alto), this six-CD set, Argo, Verve and Impulse Big Band Studio Sessions, focuses on Oliver Nelson the arranger-composer-bandleader. He does take solos on some of these dates on tenor, alto,and soprano (his only recorded solos on that instrument), but it his writing that takes center stage.

This budget-priced, five-piece box set from country great Willie Nelson includes the albums The Troublemaker (1976), To Lefty from Willie (1977), Stardust (1978), Sings Kris Kristofferson (1979), and Tougher Than Leather (1983) in their entireties.