Willie's Classic Run: Shotgun Willie vs. Phases & Stages vs. Red Headed Stranger

Shotgun Willie is mighty fine Sunday morning listening.

Shotgun Willie sits around in his underwear

what about Pinstripe Willie

Red-Headed Stranger gets my vote, just for the tone of the guitar alone. And the playing is like the guitar version of Seurat.

shotgun. phases and stage has jams, but goofy "concept" is dumb, i hate those interlude things...red headed isn't fun enough. but they are all great.

Shotgun has become my fave in the last year or so. I love all the thick layers and boogie murk. It seems to be Willie at his greasiest.

Listening to SW and John Prine's Sweet Revenge back to back is a terrific experience. RIP Arif Mardin.

Red-Headed Stranger gets my vote, just for the tone of the guitar alone. And the playing is like the guitar version of Seurat.

OTM and a great analogy.

need to re-listen to all of these.

agreed these are all stunners (i voted for Shotgun Willie, because it's fun to play out), but i'm coming to realize the neglected RCA records that came before these are classics in their own right, esp. Yesterday's Wine, The Words Don't Fit the Picture, The Willie Way. plus, it's funny to see Willie in turtlenecks and butter leather, all clean-shaven.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

If more people vote in the MGMT poll than this one, I'm quitting ILX.

^ guess it worked?

red-headed stranger is the most immaculate thing ever recorded, i think, sometimes

i say "thing" because it's not quite an album somehow, yet it's far more than an EP

what kills me every time is how the harmonies only come in for half of one chorus on "can i sleep in your arms tonight" - when they do, it is so sweet, and so unbelievably gratifying, but like everything other aspect it pulls back. i can see the comparison to seurat but where seurat almost overloads his paintings with points there is so much space in this, the notes are placed just so, reaching across the void to each other.

a few good stories in here about red-headed stranger but i swear i read some other oral history about it recently that went into more detail

https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/willies-god-willies-god-we-love-willie/

The album Red Headed Stranger was recorded live. Willie said, “I wrote this album, this concept record.” And we hadn’t heard it till we went in there and he started playing it for us. I mean, the tape machine’s rolling the whole time. That’s really why it’s so sparse, because we’re just kind of listening and learning the songs. I don’t think we played them but a couple of times, and we did it in two days. We were all just mesmerized by what he was doing.

I still can’t find that oral history!! So annoying.

this is the best:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDAE9Ke6dWw