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Thoughts on Willie’s concert
Caught Willie Nelson and the Family’s show last night at the Coliseum — here’s a Trib slide show if you want to see who was there, on stage and in the crowd — and it just reinforced what a pro the guy is.
He and the band took the stage about 9 p.m. and from the opening chords of “Whiskey River” to the finale of “I Saw the Light,” which ended the second encore, they cranked out 37 songs in a non-stop hour and 40 minutes. Not bad for a 74-year-old and a band with several players not too much younger.
Willie talks as much as he sings these days, but that’s really not a problem: He’s known not for a melodic voice, but his jazz-like phrasing, where he stretches a word or phrase before or past a beat. I always think of jazz great Billie Holiday, whose vocal quality wasn’t much to speak of (at least later in her career), but who could transform the most mundane of songs through emotion and phrasing.
Thursday’s concert reminded me what a master of the three-minute song Nelson the songwriter is — no long story ballads that I recall, but songs that lent themselves to instrumental solos and breaks — and what a smart show playlist he creates, a skill honed by hundreds of Vegas gigs, arena concerts and a couple of generations spent in honky-tonks. Nelson’s recent, popular duet with Toby Keith, “Beer For My Horses,” was the third song in the set with two new Nelson songs introduced at about the 10-song mark, followed by two more new ones in the concert’s final third.
Nelson also didn’t program hits in a strict chronology, but clustered them for emotional resonance, “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” followed by a couple of songs from his Stardust album, “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys” next to “Good-Hearted Woman.”
Great stuff, great show, though probably old-school to a younger generation raised on eye candy like concert video and pyrotechnics. Give Nashville’s current kings and queens 30 years and see what endures from their careers …
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By Linda Schreiber
March 15, 2008 10:03 AM | Link to this | Report comment abuse
I grew up w/Willie and Bobbie. Willie and I sang in the cotton patch while picking cotton … and chasing whirlwinds. Bobbie taught me piano and their grandmother gave me voice lessons. When the band started playing a Saturday morning radio show, Mama Nelson told Willie that they needed to have “little Linda” (I was 12 yrs old and Willie was 16)sing with the band. I sang solos w/the band until Willie graduated from high school & left Abbott. These two people (Willie & Bobbie) are two of the finest individuals anyone could know. Willie and Bobbie purchased the Abbott Methodist Church building a couple of years ago when the church members merged w/Hillsboro Methodist. I played the piano for the church services for a few months until I became ill. There are two church services per month where some regularly attend and others are visitors.
By Kyle
March 18, 2008 8:37 PM | Link to this | Report comment abuse
Good ol’ Willie. I did not see him this time around, but through the years he never lets his audience down. I have seen him at the H.O.T. in the seventies, at the Convention Center, and at his Old Opry house in Austin. He opened with Whiskey River, then played several hours before encoring out. He has never let his listeners down. He and Hank Jr. are two of the greats that play hour after hour — old school. Why don’t stars of today look like they have lived what they sing about?? The newbies have two day beards, blue eyes, and have never lived a minute of what they sing about??
Had to get that off my chest. :)