Willie+nelson

This double-disc set is cross-licensed to include key tracks from 40 years of recording! Includes Night Life; Hello Walls; Me and Paul; Bloody Mary Morning; Funny How Time Slips Away; Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain; On the Road Again; If You've Got the Money I've Got the Time; Georgia on My Mind; My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys; Always on My Mind; Pancho and Lefty; Highwayman, and more. 41 tracks!

Legends really don't come much more legendary than Willie Nelson; and with Ray Charles, B.B. King and Frank Sinatra all gone, Willie is now the last of a dying breed. Not just a singer, but probably the most relaxed-sounding vocalist ever. Willie Nelson is also a damn fine guitarist and he has used the same instrument since 1969 - a Martin N-20 guitar he calls 'Trigger'. And, lest we forget, Willie is also a songwriter of real substance. Over the years, his songs have been recorded by Bob Dylan, Patsy Cline, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley - and nearly all the songs on this compilation come from the pen of Willie Nelson.

As a songwriter and performer, Willie Nelson has played a vital role in post-rock & roll country music. Although he didn't become a star until the mid-'70s, he spent the 1960s 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. During the early '70s, Willie abandoned Nashville for his native Texas, setting up shop with the redneck hippies in Austin and taking control of his music on the landmark Shotgun Willie (1973) and Phases & Stages (1974). Nelson found a kindred spirit in Waylon Jennings and, together, they spearheaded the outlaw country movement that finally made him a star by 1975. Following the crossover success of that year's Red Headed Stranger and "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain," Nelson became a genuine success, as recognizable in pop circles as he was to country audiences; in addition to recording, he also launched an acting career in the early '80s.

Legends really don't come much more legendary than Willie Nelson; and with Ray Charles, B.B. King and Frank Sinatra all gone, Willie is now the last of a dying breed. Not just a singer, but probably the most relaxed-sounding vocalist ever. Willie Nelson is also a damn fine guitarist and he has used the same instrument since 1969 - a Martin N-20 guitar he calls 'Trigger'. And, lest we forget, Willie is also a songwriter of real substance. Over the years, his songs have been recorded by Bob Dylan, Patsy Cline, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley - and nearly all the songs on this compilation come from the pen of Willie Nelson.

As a songwriter and performer, Willie Nelson has played a vital role in post-rock & roll country music. Although he didn't become a star until the mid-'70s, he spent the 1960s 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. During the early '70s, Willie abandoned Nashville for his native Texas, setting up shop with the redneck hippies in Austin and taking control of his music on the landmark Shotgun Willie (1973) and Phases & Stages (1974). Nelson found a kindred spirit in Waylon Jennings and, together, they spearheaded the outlaw country movement that finally made him a star by 1975. Following the crossover success of that year's Red Headed Stranger and "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain," Nelson became a genuine success, as recognizable in pop circles as he was to country audiences; in addition to recording, he also launched an acting career in the early '80s.

Such is the depth of his repertoire that Willie Nelson had no trouble filling up two hours and 15 minutes on this July 1, 1976, broadcast from Dallas radio station KAFM-FM. With a little help from occasional guest vocalists Jody Payne and Bee Spears (both part of his band), as well as fellow outlaw David Allan Coe, he ran through material spanning the beginning of his career as a songwriter through his 1975 hit album Red Headed Stranger. In addition to the hits Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain and Good Hearted Woman, this includes his own interpretations of songs he wrote that were hits for others, such as Crazy and Funny How Time Slips Away, as well as covers of classics like Jambalaya, Truck Drivin' Man, and Goodnight, Irene. The broadcast is presented here in it's entirety, with digitally remastered sound and background notes.

2CD Set / 40 songs - Contains 20 Tracks not available on CD or Streaming. The breadth and scope of Willie Nelson’s career is staggering. He first established himself as part of a new generation of progressive country songwriters in the early ‘60s. Here are the obscure and rarely heard demo recordings he made prior to signing to Liberty and before RCA. All of these recordings are both musically and historically significant. Includes "Man With The Blues," "Misery," "Undo The Right," "One Step Beyond," "Any Old Arms Won't Do," "Blame It On The Times," "The End Of Understanding," "Slow Down Old World," "A New Way To Die," "Home Motel," "Right From Wrong," "Slow Down Old World," "Happiness Lives Next Door," "I Feel Sorry For Him," "Where My House Lives," and more.

For the series of sessions that laid the foundation for Willie Nelson's career and thus changed the course of modern country music, these recordings have been treated pretty cavalierly over the years. But first, a little history… Willie Nelson was a struggling songwriter, hungry for work and maybe even just plain hungry, when he moved to Nashville in late 1960 with his wife and kids and met Hank Cochran, who was a writer for Pamper Music. Pamper, which was owned by country star Ray Price, fiddle player Hal Smith, and a baker (!) from Pico Rivera, California named Claude Caviness, was the hottest publishing company in town, thanks to writers like Cochran and Harlan Howard and songs like "Heartaches by the Number" and "I Fall to Pieces." At first, Willie wasn't going to sign with Pamper because Hal Smith wouldn't give Willie the draw he needed, but Cochran told Smith to front Willie fifty bucks a week from his own draw. So Willie, determined to reward Cochran's trust, got to work.