Willie Nelson: The Complete Atlantic Sessions (Atlantic/Rhino)

One among plenty of tags to stick on one William Hugh Nelson is “survivor.” At 73 years old, he’s outlived most contemporaries, overcome a crippling tax debt, made hits and hard earned his American legend status. Willie’s been beating the odds and surviving his whole career. Flash to the early 1970s, when Willie was closing in on two decades as a songwriter and performer. The only thing that prevented him from being a failure was a string of writing credits on songs that hit for the likes of Patsy Cline, Ray Price and Farron Young. He had been all but run out of Nashville by the Music Row establishment and returned to his native Texas. A chance Austin meeting with producer and Atlantic records bigwig Jerry Wexler found Nelson signing to the label’s newly formed country division based (where else?) in Nashville. This period marked the beginning of Nelson's ascendance. The heart of The Complete Atlantic Sessions is a pair of albums, 1973’s Shotgun Willie and 1974’s Phases and Stages, two of the most important country records of that decade. Nashville saw Nelson as poison to their status quo because he refused to fit the mold. Therein lies the wonder of his two records with Atlantic: Nelson was just beginning to test the limits of his musical alchemy. He blended country’s honesty and charm with the fiddle stomp of mountain music, jazz chords and progressions, R&B boogie and singer-songwriter intimacy and detail, all with rock-and-roll grit and fortitude. On Shotgun Willie Nelson pulls together his own compositions, as well as Bush/Stroud’s “Whiskey River” and a pair of standards by Texas swing titan Bob Wills, for a loafing but spirited work of genius. Recorded in Muscle Shoals with Wexler, Phases and Stages was heavier in concept and in tone, exploring a dissolving marriage (something Nelson had fully and personally researched twice at that point) with “his” and “hers” sides of the album. The darkness found in the variations of the title theme as well as the grimness laid bare on “Pretend I Never Happened” are tempered by the rollicking “Bloody Mary Morning” and the whimsical axioms of “Heaven and Hell.” Yet, while both of the latter have a light, good-natured air, the bleakness is never far beneath the surface. Phases and Stages remains a magnificent album and a classic among concept records. In addition to outtakes from both records, this package also includes a disc of live recordings from the era. The amazing thing about all of this is that Willie’s brief dalliance with Atlantic is being so celebrated. At the time, these records were considered failures. In fact, Atlantic closed up its Nashville operation following their release and a disgruntled Wexler quit and turned Nelson free. Call it the healing hands of time. Further proof of the potency of this narrow but important period is that to this day much of the meat of Willie and Family’s live show consists of these songs. “Whiskey River” is such an anthemic part of Willie’s legacy that it often figures as the opening and closing number of the show on the same night…and it’s sure good enough to drown in.