Willie Nelson returns to songwriting
Willie Nelson’s having quite a renaissance. With Sony’s Legacy division having broadened their scope from reissues to include new material from heritage artists, Nelson’s settled into a surprisingly comfortable home. His turn to classic Americana with Country Music and Remember Me, Vol. 1 led him back to his longtime home at Columbia (now part of Sony) for 2012’s Heroes, last year’s stroll through a set of standards, Let’s Face the Music and Dance and a set of duets, To All the Girls. On his latest, Nelson supplements his resurgent vocal and performing talents with a return to songwriting, penning nine new originals for this set of fourteen tracks.
At 81, Nelson still sounds remarkably fresh, and the cleverness of his lyrics is (as always) buoyed by deeper truths. The songs include the emotionally penetrating lyrics for which he’s renowned, ranging from low-key introspection to the mid-tempo cheek of “Wives and Girlfriends” and “Used to Her.” Nelson’s hiatus from songwriting is the subject of “Guitar in the Corner,” but in typical fashion there’s more than one layer, as he could just as easily be singing about rekindling an interpersonal relationship as returning to songwriting. The selection of covers include titles by Vince Gill, Shawn Camp and Bill Anderson; the latter’s “The Songwriters” is an apt selection for an album on which Nelson’s own pen has reemerged.
Buddy Cannon’s production and the hand-picked band (highlighted by Tommy White’s steel and Jim “Moose” Brown’s piano, and featuring the ever-present harmonica of Mickey Raphael) are spot-on, leaving room for Nelson’s gut-string guitar and idiosyncratic vocal phrasings. Jamie Johnson is the album’s only guest, adding a Waylon-like gravity on a duet of Billy Joe Shaver’s “The Git Go.” Nelson’s artistry is no surprise, but his continued enthusiasm for recording, and his revived interest in writing, is producing unexpected dividends for his many fans. [©2014 Hyperbolium] 