One Hell of a Ride
(Columbia/Legacy)
Release Date: 04/01/2008 12:00
As Willie Nelson turns 75, Columbia has finally put some corporate muscle behind a career overview of a label-hopping one-take-and-out compulsive whos claimed he has 2,000 more tracks in the can. Spanning his long tours at RCA, Columbia and Universal, this sanely ambitious, provisionally definitive 100-track box does country musics reigning survivor justice. Big as overrecorded coequal Johnny Cashs stylistic embrace was, Nelsons is widerhes always had jazz leanings; his 1978 standards album, Stardust, was more audacious than his 1976 Waylon Jennings coup, Wanted! The Outlaws; and just three years ago he put out the reggae record that provides the boxs subpar version of The Harder They Come. Nelson is so prolific that subpar moments come with the territoryhello, again, Julio Iglesias. But by going 50/50 on his taciturn, precise, sometimes metaphysical songwriting and his deceptively conversational interpretive singing, this covers that territory. Once youre oriented, by all means explore.