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Willie Nelson
The Complete Atlantic Sessions
Part One: Shotgun Willie
(Atlantic/Rhino)
The Music Box's #3 boxed set of 2006
First Appeared in The Music Box, July 2006, Volume 13, #7
Written by John Metzger
Willie Nelson’s tenure at Atlantic Records may have been brief, but he made
the most of his opportunities. After years of toiling behind the scenes in
Nashville, where Ray Price, Patsy Cline, and others turned his songs into major
hits while his own recordings largely were ignored, Nelson moved back to Texas
where he began to refocus his energy and refine his style. Although he wouldn’t
become a star until he joined Columbia’s roster and issued his 1975 country
classic Red Headed Stranger, his preceding albums for Atlantic (Shotgun
Willie and Phases and Stages) were equally ambitious and significant.
Each has been remastered, reissued, and augmented with a plethora of bonus
material as part of the three-disc box set The Complete Atlantic Sessions.
Rounding out the collection is Live at the Texas Opry House, a concert
outing that never made it to market, though large portions of it appeared on
The Classic, Unreleased Collection. All in all, The Complete Atlantic
Sessions lovingly turns the spotlight on an oft-overlooked period of
Nelson’s career, and what follows is a closer examination of its components.
 Willie Nelson
Shotgun Willie
(Atlantic/Rhino)
It somehow seems fitting that the same year in which Willie Nelson fully
returned to his Texas-based roots — by paying tribute to songwriter Cindy Walker
on the stellar You Don’t Know Me — would also see his 1973 gem Shotgun
Willie given its proper due. Walker, of course, wrote many of the tunes that
are affiliated with Texas legend Bob Wills, and throughout Shotgun Willie,
Nelson tipped his hat to his heritage by covering the Wills/Walker-penned
Bubbles in My Beer as well as the Wills/Tommy Duncan standard Stay All
Night (Stay a Little Longer). For all intents and purposes, the two albums
go hand in hand: the former being a crucial reminder of where Nelson obtained
his genre-bending style, the latter being the effort on which he first fully
embraced it.
Although Yesterday’s Wine hinted at the new directions that he would
explore, Shotgun Willie was the key that unlocked the next phase of
Nelson’s career. Freed from the confines of Nashville and signed to Atlantic
Records’ fledgling country music division, he suddenly had more freedom than
ever before to package his material however he saw fit. Backed by his regular
touring band — which was augmented with Doug Sahm, Waylon Jennings, Larry
Gatlin, and David Bromberg, among others — Nelson injected country with a hefty
dose of jazz, blues, gospel, folk, and rock. Hinting at the changes to come, he
took a final parting shot at the Nashville establishment that he had left behind
by singing on the title track, which opened the set: "You can’t make a record if
you ain’t got nothin’ to say/You can’t play music if you don’t know nothin’ to
play."
Granted, there was a touch of sparkle to the production of Shotgun Willie,
particularly the string arrangements that adorned Slow Down Old World and
So Much to Do, the horns that drifted through the title track, and the
occasional backing vocals throughout the endeavor that forever will tie it to
the early ’70s. Nevertheless, the collection also was a far cry from the sort of
syrupy, formulaic products that Nashville was accustomed to making. The
arrangements were pliant, the rhythms were freewheeling and loose, and the
guitar solos — be they Nelson’s acoustic flights; James Clayton Day’s weepy,
pedal steel excursions; or the extra bite provided by the electric guitar
accompaniments of Bromberg and Sahm — rippled with an Americana edginess that
fed a rock ’n‘ roll audience that had been primed by Bob Dylan’s Nashville
Skyline and the Grateful Dead’s American Beauty and Workingman’s
Dead. Although Nelson would go on to make better albums, Shotgun Willie
was the place where his ideas began to coalesce, and taken in conjunction with
Waylon Jennings’ Honky Tonk Heroes, the country music world was turned on
its ear.
Rather than offering alternate (and largely inferior) renditions of songs
that appeared on the original album, the bonus material featured on the newly
refurbished rendition of Shotgun Willie is predominately composed of
outtakes. The fact that just over half of the extra tracks were issued
previously on The Classic, Unreleased Collection makes them a little less
revelatory than they otherwise might have been, but from the haunted devastation
that Nelson brings to Both Ends of the Candle as well as a solo
interpretation of Leon Russell’s My Cricket and Me to the stinging,
swinging blues of Floyd Tillman’s I Gotta Have Something I Ain’t Got,
there’s plenty here into which casual and diehard fans alike can sink their
teeth. 
This is the first installment of a three-part series, which will examine The Complete Atlantic Sessions
album by album. The entire set is rated: ½
Part Two: Phases and Stages
Part Three: Live at the Texas Opry House
The Complete Atlantic Sessions is available from Amazon.com.
To order, Click Here!
For Canadian orders, please
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Shotgun Willie is available from Amazon.com.
To order, Click Here!
For Canadian orders, please
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For UK orders, please
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Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2006 The Music Box
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