Does anybody know how many albums Willie Nelson has put out? I can think of three that have come through my mailbox in the last year alone, and if I went down into the basement to look, I don’t have a clue how many I would come back upstairs with. What I do know is that there isn’t a single one that doesn’t have at least a few good songs on it, and there are dozens that I have listened to all the way through more times than I can count. His whole career has been a testament to the power of creativity and the ability to approach old situations in a new way, and Willie can pride himself on never letting down the fans who have stuck around for all the twists and turns that he’s encountered along the way. Still, after decades in the spotlight and a list of singles, albums and collaborations way more than a country mile long, it’s easy to take a new Wille Nelson record for granted. And, in the case of ‘Band Of Brothers’, that would be a shame.
Like a new record from Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones or Stevie Wonder, it’s tempting to consider what’s on offer in terms of what’s come before, and that can be tricky. Time does funny things – records that didn’t seem like much at the time – say Dylan’s ‘Nashville Skyline’ or ‘Self-Portrait’ – often increase in reputation as listeners catch up and digest the music with the perspective gained over the passage of time. So, on the surface, it may not seem fair to put songs like ‘I’ve Got A Lot Of Travelling to Do’ or ‘Send Me A Picture’ up against ‘Crazy’ or ‘Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground’, but taken on their own merits, they’re pretty darn good songs. And, as we’ve come to expect, there are a few real diamonds on ‘Band Of Brothers’ with ‘The Wall’ – the nearest Willie’s ever come to writing an apology for all of the regrettable things he’s done – being the album’s clear standout track. The poignant ‘I Thought I Left You’ is classic, looking through the rear view mirror at the woman as she disappears in a cloud of dust Willie and ‘Wives and Girlfriends’ is a song only he could sing in this day and age and get away with it. It’s as corny as an old episode of ‘Hee Haw’, but somehow it works when Willie sings it – if only because you know what a ‘nice guy’ he is in real life.
Like his last three albums ‘Heroes’, ‘Let’s Face The Music and Dance’ and ‘To All The Girls’, ‘Band Of Brothers’ was recorded in Nashville with Buddy Cannon who produced as well as co-wrote most of the songs this time around. The result is a clean, acoustic recording that showcases Nelson’s voice and guitar playing in their best light. Overall, ‘Band Of Brothers’ isn’t quite the triumph that ‘Heroes’ was, but it sounds considerably better to my ears than either ‘Let’s Face The Music and Dance’ or ‘To All the Girls’ did. Is it essential? That’s a difficult question to answer because – as I stated at the beginning – Nelson puts out so much material that he often ends up being in competition with himself. Where most artists of his generation – like Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan or Merle Haggard – are happy if they can put out an album every few years, you still get the feeling that Willie Nelson could still release a record a month if he wanted to.For my own part, I’ve been enjoying listening to it immensely and I’ll leave it for somebody else – maybe a hundred years from now – to work out what’s best and most worthy of our attention because I could listen to Willie pick out any old tune he wants and noodle on Trigger until way after the cows come home.
Review by Douglas Heselgrave
This posting also appears at www.restlessandreal.blogspot.com
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