Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Happy 90th Birthday, Willie Nelson!
One of my all-time favorites. (There aren’t many, and certainly even fewer that I’d bother to go and see live, and in performance.) I’ve written about him before, both here and on my own blog, most extensively exactly two years ago today, when he turned 88. And about how I’m going to see him (inshallah) in August, when he’s performing just up the road.
Recently, though, Willie surprised me.
In March 2023, he released his hundred-umpty album, I Don’t Know a Thing about Love. It’s a compilation of the songs of Harlan Howard, the man who gave Nelson his first shot as a songwriter, all those years ago.
I’ve always been fond of “Streets of Baltimore,” which Howard co-wrote with Tompall Glaser, and which I first came across as a duet between those spectacularly star-crossed lovers of the 1970s, Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris.
Here’s Willie’s 2023 version:
And here–from so very long ago (fifty years, crimenutely, I must have been eighteen)–are the long-dead Gram and a very young Emmylou:
But this one, I didn’t know. Harlan Howard and Willie Nelson meet Edgar Allan Poe, in the “Beautiful Annabel Lee.”
Just wonderful.
It’s a great album. Highly recommended.
Happy Birthday, Willie. Here’s to your next century.
Published in General
Love it!
Somehow that’s not quite the melody or arrangement I figured for Annabel Lee.
Willie is the hardest working man in show business….and he has a book coming out soon.
But I don’t think Gram and Emmylou were ever lovers.
I can smell Yer post from Here.
Oh wow! I had heard that Willie Nelson had died, been hit by a car.
Apparently he had been playing on the road again.
@She — I think you would love line dancing. Two friends and I took lessons and had great fun!
I wrote on Randy’s Country Music Blog earlier today on the topic of Willie
Willie Nelson is a great songwriter and performer, but what I always loved about Willie Nelson is his guitar licks and the sound he can create out of Trigger.
This song is a Billy Joe Shaver tune co-written and originally performed by Waylon Jennings, but in this version Billy Joe Shaver sings with Willie singing backup and the guitar solos and fills are pure Willie:
As someone said, it’s time the rest of us start thinking about the kind of world we’re going to leave for Willy and Keith.
Edit:
Underrated as a guitarist
In the physical sense? Maybe. Maybe not.
In the musical sense, and has she been carrying some sort of torch for him ever since? Pretty sure that’s the case.
It reminds me a lot of some forms of Scottish dancing, and yes, you’re right.
My wife and I saw Willie at the Kentucky State Fair.
In 1983!
I swear that this guy could sing almost anything and own the song, just make it his.
[stardust]
Agree:
Why did the algorithm present this to me? Obviously, so I could post it here.