Willie Nelson: The early years

Willie Nelson, alone among his contemporaries, continues to be an active and prolific recording artist. Not only is he releasing albums at a pace that would leave today’s stars thoroughly exhausted, but Willie continues to make guest appearances on the albums of other artists, famous and unknown alike.

The eighty year old Nelson continues to tour relentlessly, something he has been doing in one form or another for over fifty years.

Prior to “Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain”, most knew Willie Nelson (if they knew of him at all) as the man who wrote “Hello Walls” for Faron Young and “Crazy” for Patsy Cline, and some songs that other singers had success recording.

Outside of his home state of Texas, the public consciousness of Willie Nelson as a performer basically dates back to the two albums Willie recorded for Atlantic in the early 1970s after which time he moved to Columbia for his recording heyday. This article will discuss the major label albums issued before then.

The first album out of the box was … And Then I Wrote which was released on the Liberty label in September 1962. This album featured “Touch Me” as the single (it reached #7 on Billboard’s country chart) and featured some songs that other artists had recorded with some success such as “Hello Walls” and “Three Days” (Faron Young), “Crazy” (Patsy Cline), “Funny How Time Slips Away” (Joe Hinton, Billy Walker). Although not released as a singles, “Mr. Record Man” and “Darkness On The Face of The Earth” would become songs associated with Willie, and “Undo The Right” would be a top ten hit for long-time friend Johnny Bush in 1968 (Johnny Bush and Willie Nelson were both in Ray Price’s band the Cherokee Cowboys during the early 1960s, and played in each others bands at various points in time). “The Part Where I Cry” was the other single release from this album.

… And Then I Wrote was not a terribly successful album but it was the first opportunity most had to hear Willie’s quirky phrasing. Although marred by Liberty’s version of the ‘Nashville Sound’, it is certainly an interesting album.

Willie’s second and final album for Liberty was Here’s Willie Nelson. This album featured five songs that Willie wrote (“Half A Man”, “Lonely Little Mansion”, “Take My Word”, “The Way You See Me” and “Home Motel”). The originals compositions were nothing special – only “Half A Man” attracted much attention from other artists – but among the covers are the Fred Rose composition “Roly Poly” (a successful recording for Bob Wills and for Jim Reeves) and Rex Griffin’s “The Last Letter”.

There were no Country Album charts until 1964. Neither of the two Liberty albums made the pop charts.

From Liberty, Willie very briefly moved to Monument Records, with no success (I’m not sure if any tracks actually were released at the time). Some of these songs were released in 1980 on a two album set titled The Winning Hand featuring Brenda Lee, Dolly Parton, Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson and released to cash in on the popularity of Dolly and Willie. All four artists had recorded for Monument in the past, and Kristofferson and Lee recorded additional vocals to create duets (and some existing tracks were edited together to create duets). Twelve of the twenty tracks were duets, and despite the contrived origins of the project, it was critically well received and well worth owning.

Willie’s immense songwriting talents attracted the attention of Chester Burton (“Chet”) Atkins”, the head honcho of RCA’s Nashville operations, and he was signed to RCA.

There is the misconception that Willie Nelson’s RCA albums found Willie buried by syrupy string arrangements and soulless background choruses. While it is true that RCA was never really sure what to do with Willie, the reality is that only the occasional track suffered from over production. Unlike Decca where Owen Bradley buried his more traditional artist such as Webb Pierce and Ernest Tubb with unnecessary choral arrangements, Chet and his other producers went much lighter on the embellishments. Although what we would deem the classic ‘Willie and Family’ sound never completely emerged on the RCA recordings, many of Willie’s albums had relatively sparse production. In fact, when Mickey Raphael produced and released the 17 track Naked Willie album in 2009, an album in which he removed excess production off Willie’s RCA tracks, he probably corralled about 80% of the tracks on which the production could be deemed excessive. Whether or not RCA could turn Willie into a star, his records always featured some of the best musicians and arrangers on the planet.

Country Willie – His Own Songs features twelve songs Willie wrote or co-wrote. Some of the songs were also on his major label debut, but I prefer the RCA take on the ‘Nashville Sound’ to that of Liberty. The songs are great and Willie is in good voice.. Songs included are “One Day at a Time” (not the Marilyn Sellars/Cristy Lane gospel hit of the 1970s), “My Own Peculiar Way”, “Night Life”, “Funny How Time Slips Away”, “Healing Hands of Time”, “Darkness on the Face of the Earth”, “Hello Walls”, .”Are You Sure”, “Mr. Record Man”, “It Should Be Easier Now”, “So Much to Do” and “Within Your Crowd”. Pickers include Jerry Kennedy and Jerry Reed, and steel guitar is featured on some of the tracks. This could be considered a ‘best of’ compilation of Willie’s songs (not recordings) up to this point in time. This album reached #14 on Billboard’s Country Albums chart.

Country Favorites – Willie Nelson Style is one of my two favorite RCA albums. This 1966 album was recorded with members of Ernest Tubb’s legendary Texas Troubadours, augmented by fiddler Wade Ray and pianist Hargus Robbins. Willie and Wade, of course were regulars on ET’s syndicated television show and the use of the Troubadours and the lack of the ‘Nashville Sound’ trappings made for a swinging set of western swing and honky-tonk classics. This version of the Texas Troubadours included Buddy Charleton (steel), Jack Drake (bass), Jack Greene (drums) , Leon Rhodes (lead guitar) and Cal Smith (rhythm guitar) augmented by Wade Ray and pianist Hargus Robbins. This album reached #9 on Billboard’s Country Albums chart .

Standout tracks on this album include “My Window Faces The South”, “Columbus Stockade Blues” and “San Antonio Rose” but the entire album is good. Willie sounds comfortable and relaxed on this entire set and his vocals, while sometimes an awkward fit , reflect the fun he was having performing with this collection of musicians , who were not credited on the initial release. A truncated version of this album was released on RCA Camden in 1970 as Columbus Stockade Blues.

Country Music Concert was recorded live in 1966 at Panther Hall in Dallas Texas, one of two live albums RCA would record there (the other was 1968’s Charley Pride Live at Panther Hall). This live performance featured Willie on guitar and vocals backed by his band members, Johnny Bush on drums and Wade Ray playing bass guitar. This album is my other favorite RCA album, again featuring Willie uncluttered by strings and choruses, singing mostly his own songs, but with a few covers. The album opens with Willie introducing the band and then starts with the music with a pair of long medleys in “Mr. Record Man”/”Hello Walls”/ “One Day At A Time” and “The Last Letter”/ “Half A Man”. To me the highlights of the album are Willie’s take on Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday” and his own “I Never Cared For You” and “Night Life”. This album reached #32 on Billboard’s Country Albums chart.

Make Way For Willie Nelson is a mixed bag of original compositions and covers. Released in 1967, some of the recordings are a bit overproduced and the album produced no real hits. The quasi-title track “Make Way For A Better Man” is one of those songs only Willie Nelson would write:

Hear me talkin’ now you tried to make her happy you couldn’t make her happy
Make way for a better man than you
You tried your brand of lovin’ she couldn’t stand your lovin’

Make way for a better man than you
I held back cause you and I were friends
But old buddy this is where our friendship ends
I’m takin’ over now those signals she keeps sendin’ means your romance is endin’
Make way for a better man than you

Willie’s own composition “One In A Row” reached #19 two years before this album was released. Notable covers on the album include “Born To Lose” and “Mansion On The Hill”. This album reached #9 on Billboard’s Country Albums chart.

“The Party’s Over” and Other Great Willie Nelson Songs featured the title song, which while never a big hit, was made famous by the late Don Meredith, one of the original trio of announcers for ABC Monday Night Football. When the result of the games was already determined (regardless of the time left in the game) Don would sing this song. “The Party’s Over” reached #24 for Willie, in a somewhat overproduced version. The rest of the album could be described as moody and downbeat. This album also reached #9 on Billboard’s Country Albums chart.

Good Ol’ Country Singin’ was released on RCA’s budget Camden label in January 1968. RCA sometimes used the Camden label to release truncated versions of older albums, but RCA also used it to release material that would not be released on the main label. This album is the latter but RCA actually issued a single from the album, “Blackjack County Chain”, which reached #21. My favorite track on the album is a classic weeper “You Ought To Hear Me Cry”. Billboard did not chart budget albums.

Texas In My Soul was Willie’s 1968 tribute to his home state of Texas. Three of the songs, “Waltz Across Texas”, “There’s A Little Bit of Everything In Texas” and “Texas In My Soul” were songs performed by and associated with Ernest Tubb. “Who Put All My Ex’s In Texas” was one of the first songs written by Eddie Rabbitt to be recorded. This album reached #9 on Billboard’s Country Albums chart.

Good Times is a little different and finds Willie breaking away from ‘The Nashville Sound’ mold to some extent. Other than Mickey Newbury’s “Sweet Memories” and the Jan Crutchfield-Wayne Moss composition “Down To Our Last Goodbye”, all of the songs were written or co-written by Willie. The title track has very minimal production. This album reached #29 on Billboard’s Country Albums chart.

My Own Peculiar Way, released in 1969, features eight Willie Nelson compositions (one, “Any Old Arms Won’t Do”, co-written with Hank Cochran) plus an exceptional cover John Hartford’s “Natural To Be Gone”. The title track wasn’t a hit, but it is quintessential Willie. This album reached #39 on Billboard’s Country Albums chart (are you seeing a pattern?).

Both Sides Now was released in 1970 and is basically a covers album with Willie penning only three of the eleven tracks. This album included two songs from the Roy Acuff catalogue (“Wabash Cannonball”, “Pins and Needles In My Heart”), a song from the Ray Price hit list (“Crazy Arms”) plus covers of pop songs “Both Sides Now” (penned by Joni Mitchell but a hit for Judy Collins) and and “Everybody’s Talking” (penned by Fred Neil but a hit for Nilsson). The single from this album was penned by soon-to be-ex-wife Shirley Nelson and reached #42. The now familiar “Bloody Mary Morning” makes its debut here – it would be re-recorded and released as a single after Willie moved to Atlantic.

While I like this album, it is a disjointed affair and Willie’s unusual phrasing on some of the songs won’t be to everybody’s taste. “Crazy Arms” features steel guitar and a walking base line whereas “Both Sides Now” features little more than a guitar. This album did not chart.

Laying My Burdens Down also was released in 1970 but by this time RCA had given up on having Willie score any hit singles. The title track reached #68 and the over-produced “I’m A Memory” would reach #28 and would be Willie’s last top fifty chart appearance while signed to RCA. This album is mostly composed of Willie originals but isn’t his best work. This album did not chart.

Willie Nelson and Family is a collection of songs released in 1971 as performed by Willie and the beginnings of his family band. Paul English was on board playing drums as was his sister Bobbie Nelson playing the piano. This album would set the template for future albums. Songs include the Willie Nelson-Hank Cochran collaboration “What Can You Do To Me Now” along with Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down”, Hank Sr.’s “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”, James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain”, Merle Haggard’s “Today I Started Loving You Again”, plus some Nelson originals. This album reached #43 on Billboard Country albums chart.

Released with no fanfare in September 1971, Yesterday’s Wine contains some of Willie’s finest songs, and is Willie’s first concept album. The album contains the full complement of RCA’s finest session players but sounds surprisingly spare at times. The album has a deeply philosophical and religious feel to it without being too preachy (the premise is the life of an ‘Imperfect Man’ from birth to the day of his death). The single released from the album “Yesterday’s Wine” b/w “Me and Paul” barely dented the charts, but both are still loved and remembered today:

Miracles appear in the strangest of places
Fancy me finding you here
The last time I saw you was just out of Houston
Let me sit down, let me buy you a beer

Your presence is welcome with me and my friend here
This is a hangout of mine
We come here quite often and listen to music
And to taste yesterday’s wine

Yesterday’s wine, yesterday’s wine
Aging with time, like yesterday’s wine
Yesterday’s wine, yesterday’s wine
We’re aging with time, like yesterday’s wine

“Family Bible”, a song Willie wrote but sold in order to keep eating, makes an appearance here. This album did not chart.

There would be a couple more RCA albums, and RCA would re-release various permutations and combinations of old material after Willie hit it big in the middle 1970s (including an album an which Danny Davis and The Nashville Brass were overdubbed onto ten of Willie’s songs, but by the end of 1971 it was clear that Willie would need to look elsewhere if he was to achieve success as a recording artist.

It should be noted that RCA issued several singles on Willie that either never made it onto an album, or made it onto an album years later. Two notable examples were “Johnny One Time” which hit #36 for Willie in 1968 and was a minor pop hit for Brenda Lee in 1969, and “Bring Me Sunshine” which reached #13 in 1968 but wasn’t on an album until the 1974 RCA Camden release Spotlight On Willie.

In the digital age, there are plenty of good collections covering Willie’s earlier years, both anthologies and reissues of individual albums. For the obsessive Willie Nelson fan, Bear Family has issued an eight CD set with 219 recordings. That’s overkill for all but diehard fans, but there are numerous good anthologies available. There is also Naked Willie for those who would like to have multiple versions of some of Willie’s RCA recordings.

Country Heritage: Cal Smith

I just came home to count the memories that I’ve been countin’ in my mind
I just come home to count the memories from a better day and time

“I Just Came Home To Count The Memories” (written by Glen Ray, 1974)

When the recently closed Florida Sunshine Opry (Eustis, FL) booked its first “name” (non-local) act back in 1999, the act they chose was Cal Smith. No wonder, since Cal is an excellent singer, musician, storyteller and showman.

Born Calvin Grant Shofner on April 7, 1932, in Gans, Oklahoma (but raised in Oakland California), Smith began his music career performing in San Francisco at the age of fifteen, but was not able to sustain himself professionally as a singer. Accordingly, he continued working at various day jobs–which included stints driving trucks and bronco busting – all the while working on and off as a musician.

After his discharge from the military in the mid 1950s, Smith played in a San Francisco area band while awaiting his opportunity. His big break came in 1961, when the legendary Ernest Tubb heard Smith perform and hired him to join Tubb’s equally legendary Texas Troubadours. It was during this period that “Shofner” started using the stage name “Cal Smith”, although the name did not become firmly affixed until Tubb helped the singer get his own record deal with Kapp in 1966.

The Texas Troubadours of the 1960s may have been the greatest small country band ever assembled. Consisting of Bud Charlton on steel guitar, Jack Greene on drums, Jack Drake (brother of legendary steel guitarist Pete Drake) on bass, Leon Rhodes on lead guitar and Smith on rhythm guitar, the Texas Troubadours could play fast or slow, hot or romantic, and could swing with the best of them. In Jack Greene and Cal Smith, the band boasted two superior vocalists, both of whom would have successful solo careers.

The Texas Troubadours cut three LPs of their own from 1964 to 1966, which exposed both Greene and Smith to wider audiences, with each taking care of two or more vocals per album.

While still a Texas Troubadour, Smith starting issuing records on Kapp, having chart success immediately, although the big hits were slow arriving. The first single released, “I’ll Just Go Home,” didn’t chart but made some impact on the public. The next single, “The Only Thing I Want”, hit #58 on Billboard and #41 on Cash Box, and When “Drinking Champagne” cracked the Billboard Top 40 in 1968, Smith left Tubb to start a solo career.

During his several years with Kapp he had eight more moderate hits, including “Heaven Is Just a Touch Away” which hit #47 on Billboard and “It Takes Me All Night Long” which reached #12 on Cash Box, although it only peaked at #51 on Billboard.

Upon completion of his Kapp contract, Smith signed with his former boss’s label, Decca, in 1971. The first single, “That’s What It’s Like To Be Lonesome,” only reached #58 on Billboard (#29 on Cash Box), but after that, things started happening quickly for Smith with a three year period of top twenty hits starting with “I’ve Found Someone Of My Own” (#4) in summer of 1972. After a misfire with “For My Baby,” Smith then hit the top spot with “The Lord Knows I’m Drinking,” a Bill Anderson-penned song that rings as true today as it did back then.

After another misfire came Smith’s most famous song, “Country Bumpkin,” a #1 record and the CMA Song of the Year for 1974. The follow-up to that smash hit was “Between Lust and Watching TV,” which stalled out at #11, followed by Smith’s last Billboard top ten, “It’s Time To Pay The Fiddler,” which reached the top of the pile. After that, Smith continued to chart regularly for the next four years, logging increasingly lower chart positions with his hard country sound, as only “Jason’s Farm,” “She Talked A Lot About Texas,” and “I Just Came Home To Count The Memories,” cracked the Billboard top twenty – although “Jason’s Farm” clocked in at #7 for two weeks on Cash Box.

After 1979 the hits stopped for Cal Smith, with the exception of a pair of lower singles on independent labels in 1982 and 1986, neither getting anywhere close to the top fifty.

Cal Smith was 36 years old by the time he achieved solo status as a recording artist, and already 40 years old by the time he had a top ten hit, so he figured to have a fairly short shelf life as a top-charting artist in the increasingly youth–oriented market. By way of comparison, Bobby Bare’s first top ten recording came in 1963. By 1972 Bare had already charted 29 times–and he was still three years younger than Cal Smith.

Country Heritage: Jack Greene

Although I had listened to country music for many years and had occasionally been able to purchase a 45 rpm or two, the summer of 1968 was the first time I had a summer job and was able to purchase records on a regular basis. My place of work, the Beach Theater on Atlantic Avenue in Virginia Beach, was about a thirty second walk away from a record store that carried a good supply of country 45s. Although I quickly switched over to collecting albums, my first purchase that summer was the Jack Greene single “Love Takes Care of Me,” a song which remains one of my all-time favorites. In fact, I had the lyrics of the song memorized by the time I’d heard it twice.

Jack Greene was born on January 7, 1930, in Maryville, Tennessee. From there he moved to Atlanta where he performed for a number of years before moving to Nashville in 1959, where he formed his own band — The Tennessee Mountain Boys, serving as drummer and lead singer. Jack’s big break came in 1961 when his band opened for Ernest Tubb. Jack Drake, Ernest’s bass player and band leader, noticed Greene’s talents and auditioned him for the band (Greene told Tubb biographer Ronnie Pugh that his knowledge of diesel mechanics may have played into the hiring decision as well). For the next few years, he was a drummer, guitarist, vocalist, and front man for the Texas Troubadours.

Before long, he was playing guitar and singing as an opener for Tubb, who believed in promoting his band members’ careers. Various members of Tubb’s band received occasional spots on his albums and he also had the band record several albums of their own on Decca. In 1964, Jack released his first solo record on Decca with “The Last Letter,” which was followed by “Don’t You Ever Get Tired of Hurtin’ Me” in 1965 (the Ray Price version, released at the same time received most of the radio spins). Jack’s first Top 40 hit came in early 1966 with “Ever Since My Baby Went Away.” Later that same year, while still a member of the Texas Troubadours, he released his career-making record with the Dallas Frazier composition “There Goes My Everything.”

To say it was just a hit would be understating it considerably. The song stayed on top of the Billboard country chart for 7 weeks and crossed over onto the pop charts. The album of the same name stayed #1 for 9 weeks. The song and the singer won single of the year, song of the year, male vocalist and album of the year awards at the First Annual Country Music Association awards in 1967, as well as numerous BMI, Billboard and Cash Box awards. The song also generated a pop cover in 1967 by Engelbert Humperdinck that went top twenty pop in the USA and reached #2 in the UK. Elvis Presley recorded the song in 1971 and had a top ten country hit, as well.

Jack, by now on his own as a solo performer, continued rolling in 1967 with another #1 record, “All The Time” (on top for 5 weeks), and a #2 hit (#1 on Cash Box) with “What Locks The Door.” He also became a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 1967.

In 1968, he enjoyed a #1 single with “What Locks The Door” and a #4 (#3 Cashbox) with “Love Takes Care of Me.” The year 1969 saw more of the same. “Until My Dreams Come True” and “Statue of A Fool” (possibly his best remembered song today) reached #1, and “Back In The Arms of Love” went to #4. It was that year he began a professional association with Jeannie Seely, which saw the release of a number of duet singles, and roughly a decade of joint stage shows. The first single, “Wish I Didn’t Have To Miss You,” was released in late 1969 and reached #1 on Record World, #2 on Billboard but only #9 on Cash Box.

In 1970, Jack recorded a song that I regard as his masterpiece — the Dallas Frazier penned “Lord Is That Me.” In retrospect, the song was a career killer. The hedonistic late ’60s to early ’70s saw radio stations shy away from music with overtly religious themes. Where Kristofferson’s 1973 hit “Why Me” was a very positive and uplifting song and can be appreciated in a secular context, “Lord Is That Me” is a song of despair and foreboding:

I can see a long line of cars with their headlights on
I can see kinfolks cryin’ cause somebody’s gone
Then they gather around as they let the sinner men down
I can see an old preacher prayin’ there with a frown

Chorus
Lord is that me, tell you bout this vision I see
Lord is that me, if it is have mercy have mercy on me

Many radio stations wouldn’t play the song, or would only play it if specifically requested by a caller. Our esteemed colleague Ken Johnson also noted that the song was roughly four minutes long in an era in which country songs rarely ran over three minutes.

Although Jack was coming off a run of nine consecutive top 4 records, after “Lord Is That Me” he never again had a top ten record. Even great songs like 1970’s “The Whole World Comes To Me,” 1971’s “There’s A Whole Lot About A Woman (A Man Don’t Know)” and 1973’s “I Need Somebody Bad” stalled outside the top ten. All three could have been top five records had they been recorded and released before “Lord Is That Me.” By the end of Jack’s Decca/MCA tenure he had charted twenty-nine times with seventeen records reaching the top twenty. It should be noted that recordings are typically purchased by younger listeners with chart success following the same dynamic. In 1970 Jack Greene was forty years old and looked even older.

Jack left Decca/MCA after 1975, quit recording for a few years and then emerged on Frontline Records in 1980 where he had a few minor chart placements. In 1983-1984 he had a few more minor hits for Step One Records.

Since then, he has continued to record occasionally — mostly self-produced albums or for reissue/remake labels such as Gusto. His focus largely has been on gospel music and most of his gospel albums have been available on CD at one time or another. Jack, a lifelong Christian, had Dallas Frazier recast his biggest hit into “He Is My Everything” and often segues from “There Goes My Everything” into “He Is My Everything” in his live performances.

Now 82 years old, Jack rarely performs anymore due to declining health. When he does perform it is mostly on the Grand Ole Opry. When he came to the now-defunct Florida Sunshine Opry (Eustis, FL) as recently as 2008 he was still in very good voice. He has a website where you can catch up with him. His newest album is available for sale there, as well as a thousand-plus photographs for your viewing enjoyment.