willie nelson 1970s albums poll

Laying My Burdens Down is really good, I love W&W too

i need some time to check out some of the ones i haven't listened to yet, i haven't heard 'laying my burdens down'

as of now i think my pick will be between 'shotgun willie' and 'yesterday's wine', but need to continue listening

the two that struck me as slightly overrated -- or maybe more of "you needed to be there at the time" type records -- are 'stardust' and 'waylon & willie'

'stardust' is kinda what got me started on a willie kick last year, i think having heard more of the records from this period that one strikes me as a bit FM radio-y, easy listening in comparison. which i think was the point? and it's not like it doesn't work, but i think some of the more experimental country records from early to mid decade have aged better

yeah Stardust was definitely a mainstream move at the time

I don't dislike Stardust or anything but Yesterday's Wine is the record that gives me what I wish Stardust did

Shotgun ever-so-slightly ahead of Phases for me

1. Phases and Stages
2. Red Headed Stranger
3. Shotgun Willie
4. Yesterday's Wine
5. The Words Don't Fit the Picture
6. Both Sides Now ("Pins and Needles (In My Heart)" sometimes my favorite Willie song ever)
7. Willie and Family Live
8. Stardust
9. Laying My Burdens Down
10. Waylon & Willie

from what i've read Stardust was a passion project that his label wasn't excited about, of course in retrospect it seems like a smart commercial after it sold a bajillion copies

i can't believe how prolific he remains, he released his Gershwin album almost ten years ago and since then has released another 15 studio albums.

yeah a lot I haven't heard, haha.

This run though: Shotgun Willie > Phases and Stages > Red Headed Stranger ... that's the best.

I love Stardust, even in all its MOR glory, what a fucking singer he is.

Shotgun Willie is the album where you can hear how he was able to sing the Stardust standards. I would love to have heard Dusty Springfield cover the title track.

'stardust' is kinda what got me started on a willie kick last year, i think having heard more of the records from this period that one strikes me as a bit FM radio-y, easy listening in comparison. which i think was the point?

It's a good place to start. The production is way too spare to sound like the late '70s: it's one of those out-of-time records. It's like Willie and Booker T are locked in a photo dark room.

Going with Shotgun Willie but I've not heard any of the albums after Stardust and have a couple of holes earlier in the decade.

Phases and Stages has some of his best-ever, and Waylon never sounded more charming than on that duets album.

To Lefty from Willie and the Kristofferson LP are by definition "minor" Willie, but man they are extremely enjoyable records. I mean, even with so many records, I'm not sure Willie has genuinely bad albums.

if 1980 were included you'd have both his album w/Ray Price and the Honeysuckle Rose soundtrack album. crazy run. i do think his Stardust-style follow-ups are regarded as lesser efforts and i think the rest of the '80s are considered pretty weak, right? much of what i've heard suffers from being a bit syrupy. i also remember Willie having a low point and then coming out with The IRS Tapes album, which felt kind of embarrassing with those pleading TV ads, but it is actually kinda great, and after that he was on the upswing and hasn't let up since.

IIRC, most of the bottom entries in the old Texas Monthly full-album rankings were the more Pop-leaning '80s efforts, misguided genre exercises (cough cough Reggae album), and some indie duet sets were it was clear he was just doing it to help a buddy out.

Some of those mid '80s things are dull and have plinky keyboards but not plinkier or duller than Merle Haggard or Dolly Parton's own efforts released thenl

I'm listening to the album he did with Roger Miller in 1982 and it's not as good as some of the 70s stuff, but the playing is fine and when Willie sings with his trademark ease it's pretty great. I also have The City of New Orleans, which I recall is not as good. Even then, the title track is stellar. Basically any time Willie is just playing guitar and singing is a gift.

Lol, now I'm listening to The City of New Orleans and there are definitely some questionable production choices. Willie still sounds great, though.

Red Headed Stranger is my personal fave, though theres quite a few I havent listened to.

Laying my burdens down has such good lyrics, but I do t love the arrangement. I started my own version of it that more 2 chord blues style but never finished.

Flesh ain’t nothing but the bark on a tree
The tree ain’t nothing but the soul in me

Damn

I never have caught up with much 70s country, incl. his, but Phases ad Stages has always been immaculate and so affecting: a post-breakup album---side A is hers, side B is his.

Wanted! The Outlaws, the original 1976 edition, was real good and the first country album to go platinum, I believe, and influential thataway, hey suits, see? It's really more of a Various Artists than a Willie per se, but what the heck. 1988 reissue left off tracks, but 1996 20th Anniversary Edition...is highly sought after as it restored the original 11 tracks and added 10 bonus, mostly rare cuts. Tes indeed, and I especially like it for adding more Jessi Colter songs.

Basically any time Willie is just playing guitar and singing is a gift

this!!!

I found that remnick profile of Willie as more of the same stuff we already knew, but the Dylan quote at the end made it worth it

The Electric Horsemen soundtrack won’t (and shouldn’t) get any votes but I do love My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys and I even have come around to enjoy Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys. He’s such a beautifully idiosyncratic vocalist

For the Willie just singing and playing guitar crowd, he did a gorgeous short version of Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground in 1979 on ACL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VCeXaIM7K4

With the caveat that I still haven't heard the Atlantic albums, I'm going for The Sound in Your Mind. Closing with a medley feels a little bit like cheating, except Willie has returned to those songs on other albums again and again...but the opener of "That Lucky Old Sun (which unfolds so beautifully) and then heading into a rollicking "If You've Got the Money I've Got the Time" always makes me smile and I think "I'd Have to Be Crazy" is one of his best records. A genuinely moving "Amazing Grace" here too.

For anyone who sees the '80s albums as a blur of overproduction and lazily-designed album covers, I really encourage you to seek out Somewhere Over the Rainbow--it's essentially his Django Reinhardt tribute and it's an entirely acoustic album. A total pleasure, just him and a small group of players who are clearly in love with these songs, great energy throughout.

wow, that's a lot of albums! i'm weirdly only familiar with his post 2010 output which is mostly flawless to me, maybe a bit by numbers at times but always a good listen

have been listening a lot to stardust this year

for some reason never got into shotgun willie

will check out phases and whatever wins this exciting poll

For anyone who sees the '80s albums as a blur of overproduction and lazily-designed album covers, I really encourage you to seek out Somewhere Over the Rainbow--it's essentially his Django Reinhardt tribute and it's an entirely acoustic album. A total pleasure, just him and a small group of players who are clearly in love with these songs, great energy throughout.

― mr. milligan,

I'm loving this now, thanks.

cough cough Reggae album

Willie did a reggae album?!

I love mongrel reggae, I might love this...

it is actually pretty good!

i was on a major 'phases and stages' kick around the holidays ... would be extremely hard to argue with a vote for that album. i think on my journey through this part of his discography i find myself wanting to go back to ones like 'shotgun willie' and 'yesterday's wine' which have a bit more of a looser feel to them, and you still get some great songs that traverse similar territory as the more narrative albums -- i.e. "so much to do" off 'shotgun willie' is as bracing a post-breakup song as anything on 'phases and stages'. i love the way he sings "and time, time rolls on like a river / and oh, there's just so much do" ... he does similar thing w/ that line that luther vandross would eventually land on w/ his singing, trying to sort of mimic the feeling of the word "river," curving and twisting the line like he's navigating around a bend

however, do also have to acknowledge that one of the great aspects of 'phases and stages' and 'red headed stranger' is his ability to squeeze songs like "sisters coming home / down at the corner beer joint" into these otherwise quite serious conceptual albums

one of the albums that hasn't been mentioned in here that i don't think will be in my top 5 but i really enjoy is 'the troublemaker' ... i think i actually prefer his interpretations of gospel standards through country & bluegrass than i do his interpretation of american standards thru that FM-y palette on 'stardust' (my motivation for creating this poll was NOT to routinely shit on 'stardust'). i'm pretty out of my depth in talking about the music 'the troublemaker' is borne from but to my ears it's like if willie did the soundtrack for 'o brother' or something? "when the roll is called up yonder", "precious memories" and some of others off that album are really fantastic

Walkin’ (Saturday - Set 2) (Live at The Texas Opry House, Austin, TX 6/29/74)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI2H_vwDj5Q

so good

i love how Willie was middle aged a couple years before i was born, 15 albums in, and had yet to grow a beard (that would happen for Shotgun Willie the next year)

https://cdn2.albumoftheyear.org/750x0/album/651603-the-willie-way_1003.jpg

https://cdn2.albumoftheyear.org/750x0/album/651603-the-willie-way_1003.jpg

https://cdn2.albumoftheyear.org/750x0/album/651603-the-willie-way_1003.jpg

https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Music124/v4/8b/14/81/8b1481df-200e-eb9d-e8f1-d7dbb21cab0f/dj.vqrdgkzd.jpg/1200x1200bf-60.jpg

Shotgun Willie is such a fun album. I love “devil in a sleeping bag”

my takeaway here is that I should listen to all of these

I'm def lukewarm on the Family/Live album which I do own

The Electric Horsemen soundtrack won’t (and shouldn’t) get any votes but I do love My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys

This is the only Willie record we had at home when I was a kid, and my mom took me to see the movie multiple times, so I've got similar feelings about it.

And related to voice/guitar Willie being the best, his later Who'll Buy My Memories...The IRS Tapes is exceptional and simple because it's just that.

Shotgun Willie is such a fun album. I love “devil in a sleeping bag”

― Heez, Thursday, January 29, 2026 5:33 PM (twenty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Possibly my favorite Willie song. So funky, too!

speaking of Django (whom he's proclaimed his first and all-time musical hero, along w Bob Wills), I dig his all-instrumental Night and Day and almost-all instrumental Let's Face The Music and Dance. Also, speaking of Wills (who he produced a money-losing show for when very young), try the singin' and pickin' with Asleep At The Wheel Willie and the Wheel. Ah! Yas.

Phases and Stages for me, but even though it's my favorite, I don't think he has any single album that towers over everything else - a model of consistency in quality even across an eclectic body of work.

Very true, can't pick any one tower. Although---this was my gateway, when it was a maybe-25 cent LP, Country Music Concert---before the Live was added---from the 60s: just his voice and guitar, Johnny Bush's drums, low-key and yet dynamic, mood shifts, plot twists, all in the same night (sounds like)
http://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mCoscy80-bCxPtrzuyvapxX9GL4FnYP2I

Yeah I basically refuse to vote

i'm with Vegemite Grrl, Red-Headed Stranger is the one for me, so mysterious and violent and spare and mythic. the way the harmonies come in just for one chorus of "Sleep in My Arms" and that's all you get.. just shivers down my spine

I love Night & Day too, I wish he had a couple more of those in his catalog

I find Red-Headed Stranger too -- is slight the right word? Anyway, I bought it based on reputation, wasn't impressed much, but loved other period albums.

oh it’s got vast reservoirs of depth alfred

and I love how he weaves other people’s songs into the story, like “Blue Eyes Cryin in the Rain,” as if he’s saying yes, i am one thread in this great tapestry of American music but this time THEY are one thread in MY tapestry

I love that one.

this revive is going to finally get me into willie nelson i can feel it. going to give 'phases and stages' a go this weekend.

the Willie Nelson show i saw at the Shrine Auditorium back in 2017 was really incredible. Kacey Musgraves opened, playing some cuts from Golden Hour (which had yet to be released), and Kris Kristofferson appeared onstage for an unremarked-upon cameo appearance during this huge group singalong at the end. Willie didn't stop playing for two hours.

it was mentioned before by corrs but should be restated that his work over the last 15 years or so has been especially good.

Willie & company wore us out when we saw him maybe a decade ago. we left after over 2 hours and they were still going.

The Border is great, stuff like “What If I’m Out Of My Mind” definitely got those 70s vibes

I had this one filed in the 70s but it turns out it's from 1961, remixed/released in 1978
https://www.discogs.com/master/464893-Willie-Nelson-Face-Of-A-Fighter

I find Red-Headed Stranger too -- is slight the right word? Anyway, I bought it based on reputation, wasn't impressed much, but loved other period albums.

― The Luda of Suburbia (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, January 30, 2026 10:46 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I know exactly what you mean. It is sparsely arranged, and I've read the studio execs thought it was a demo.

Few years ago I caught a particularly bad case of covid while travelling, and drove 9 hours home from DC to upstate NY with a crazy fever, sweating bullets, feeling insane, and all I had to listen to was a 2-disc best of Willie set that I just played on repeat over & over for the whole drive. By the time I got back to NY i'm pretty sure me & Willie made a cosmic psychic connection on the astral plane, like 5% of me thinks that he'd recognize me if we ever met.

has anyone ever proposed a willie nelson listening thread? he's kind of perfect for it. and it wouldn't take
more than six or seven years to get through his catalog.

voted Shotgun Willie

listened to shotgun willie today, it is perfect.

the whole "atlantic sessions" collection is terrific (some good outtakes/rarities included too).

When I was kid my parent listened to music pretty casual, pretty much just the radio, they didn't have a ton of records, but they did have Greatest Hits (& Some That Will Be) and Stardust, both which I remember listening to a bunch as a kid.

A yr or so ago they gave me stack of records & Stardust was in there and man...that is a fucking great record, Alfred is spot on it is a totally an "out of time" record, so many great records but hard for me to vote another one

Thank you! It's out of time, but not timeless. Willie reclaimed those standards as part of the country canon as surely as Al Green and Ray Charles did country songs for the R&B canon and Bryan Ferry did for the pop Canon.

It could only have happened in the late '70s when these genres were a couple decades old

last couple posts very very otm. a perfect album.

he reclaims those songs so thoroughly that sometimes i'm convinced that collection of standards is the quintessential willie nelson album, and one of the all time great documents of 20th century american music.

He and Nina Simone are my favorites when it comes to the standards

listen-along for the winner?

one of the albums that hasn't been mentioned in here that i don't think will be in my top 5 but i really enjoy is 'the troublemaker' ... i think i actually prefer his interpretations of gospel standards through country & bluegrass than i do his interpretation of american standards thru that FM-y palette on 'stardust' (my motivation for creating this poll was NOT to routinely shit on 'stardust'). i'm pretty out of my depth in talking about the music 'the troublemaker' is borne from but to my ears it's like if willie did the soundtrack for 'o brother' or something? "when the roll is called up yonder", "precious memories" and some of others off that album are really fantastic

Just wanted to second this recommendation--The Troublemaker is so good, really joyous music. My understanding is this was recorded for Atlantic before he joined Columbia for Red-Headed Stranger, but when Atlantic stopped doing country he decided to just put it out in '76. The long take on "Precious Memories" is especially deeply felt.

Yeah, The Troublemaker was actually cut at the Shotgun Willie sessions, and was originally slated to be his debut for Atlantic before being shelved in favor of the secular set. After moving over to Columbia, Willie bought back the tapes and had the recently hired Mickey Raphael oversee a remix and overdubs.

Listened to my copy of Red Headed Stranger this morning. “Remember Me” > “Hands on the Wheel” > “Bandera” is a shockingly mature and beautiful way to end an album, replete with measured, lovely playing. Surely felt like a classic the day it was released.

FCC, I’d love a Willie listening thread, even if just his 70s catalogue or another subset.

Would enjoy a Willie listening thread.

Migt possibly be interested in that as well

remember me is such an insta-classic. could be a standard.