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Willie Nelson still an Outlaw

08/09/05

By FISH GRIWKOWSKY -- Edmonton Sun

Nelson's 'Countryman' reviewed

When Little Willie Nelson first broke onto the Nashville scene in the 1960s, the only one who seemed to understand what kind of impact he might make was Bob Wills.

"I have had the pleasure of being an entertainer for nearly 35 years," swing-master Wills said later, "but hardly ever have I seen the likes of Willie Nelson."

Nelson, back after a long absence for a show at Rexall Place tomorrow, changed Nashville, all right - first by writing a few of its greatest songs, then by getting the hell out of there after his house in the hills burned down at Christmas in 1970. Patsy Cline's Crazy, Faron Young's Hello Walls and Three Days, Roy Orbison's Pretty Paper - writing these numbers alone is a great feat.

But it was Nelson's turning his back on the increasingly saccharine, orchestrated country music of the day (sound familiar?) that fit well into the counterculture that, like "alternative" music in the '90s, would soon become the mainstream.

Inspired as much by Kris Kristofferson's candid and educated writing style as the fellow Texan's unwillingness to compromise with major record labels, Nelson dropped the Bryl-Cream for good and grew it out long and shaggy - importantly bridging the gap between hippies and cowboys, dopers and drinkers, ranchers and bikers.

"According to the regimented bureaucracy, I wasn't doing it right," he shrugged. And how many of them would someday cameo in an Austin Powers movie, eh?

Unlike Johnny Cash, who accented his dark side with a Bible in his hand , Nelson's watering of the newly sprung Outlaw movement was merely an attempt to be more comfortable, to smoke a bowl among friends, making music and getting occasionally on the road again, especially to Vegas, where his popularity grew quickly.

This he did with several strokes: first the country opera Red-Headed Stranger in '75, where he fought label-craved orchestration and won. Next, the ubiquitous compilation Wanted: The Outlaws, the first country platinum album ever, thanks especially to an early Marvel team-up of Waylon Jennings and Willie doing Good Hearted Woman. Nashville began to count its losses.

Despite his fighting a $16.7-million tax bill, settling lower, it is somewhat ironic to discuss Nelson as one of the outlaw country Mount Rushmore faces, given that he and his ilk (Highwaymen Cash, Kristofferson, Jennings and Merle Haggard) were trying to preserve the traditions of country set down by Hank Williams, who literally drank himself to the afterlife before he could turn 30.

Nonetheless, as the '70s wore on, the forces of marketing soon understood that in a culture of unexplainable war and the very cost of living becoming impossible to handle, the establishment was the last place anyone would look for salvation. Again, sound familiar?

But when it comes down to it, Nelson's immaculate, jazzing guitar picking and insatiable musical curiosity drives him ever outward.

Once Stardust came out, an album of beautiful old standards, Nelson showed that he would try anything, crossing over beyond country and pop into film and cartoons like King of the Hill, books like The Facts of Life and Other Dirty Jokes, gospel, blues, reggae, of course swing, children's songs, commercial taco anthems and the very orchestrated commercial country he once fled, dueting with the likes of Toby Keith in one of the latter's greatest tunes.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But you respect his ongoing science. He will bust it out till the day he meets Waylon and Johnny again, it seems.

Off all things, Nelson, who is now 72, represents a church of free thinking which has innumerable followers. He began to be known for his great, star-studded piss-ups - first with his Dripping Springs festivals in the '70s, then his impassioned work for Farm Aid, and to this day his famous Fourth of July weekends, which is as great a mecca as Graceland, only way more fun - the kind of place where you need to bring a canteen of water and plenty of baby powder to survive the Texas heat. The state even declared it Willie Nelson Day. We should follow suit.

Getting him here has been an ongoing wish-list project for years, and tickets are still available for $65, plus service charge. Given the rarity of his appearances here, don't you think it's time you reached into your pocket for Willie? You know what I mean.

A FEW ESSENTIAL WILLIES:

* Shotgun Willie (1973) - Perhaps his best, including the Bob Wills song Stay a Little Longer. Scrumptious listening.

* Phases and Stages (1974) - Along with Dylan's Blood on the Tracks and Rick Buckner's Devotion + Doubt, one of the best divorce albums, ever.

* Redheaded Stranger (1975) - His time-travel album of sorts, a full-on country opera. "Was the time of the preacher, in the year of oh-one ..." Spare and haunting.

* Stardust (1978) - Hello, world. This crossover album is unstoppable, especially with Blue Skies and Georgia on My Mind.

* Highwayman (1985) - The Highwaymen debut. Any stubborn fool who says they don't like country should be sent here.

* Teatro (1998) - Full of Emmylou Harris, recorded in an old Spanish theatre, this is the moment of Nelson's greatest modern artistry.

* Johnny Cash & Willie Nelson (1998) - Though Nelson is outperforming Cash, what's great about this is their banter. With Cash's passing, Nelson tops the pyramid now.