John listens to music

In the spirit of me-centric threads like John plays games and John buys comics.

My girlfriend and I are engaging in artist-specific listening sessions in an attempt to take on a together project. We pick a well known artist whose work we know and are familiar with but who we feel we don't really thoroughly understand. Then we pick out five albums that span the artists career (looking for things that are indicative of the changes they've gone through, different eras, generally first and most recent or most critically appreciated.... we're NOT looking so much for overlooked jewels) and download/buy them. We give it a week/week and a half (roughly five to eight full listens front to back) and then talk about our thoughts/impressions. The intention is to become more culturally conversant and to have at least a working knowledge of what the artist is best known for.

We just finished our first artist, Ornette Coleman (we did Something Else!, Shape of Jazz to Come, Free Jazz, At The Golden Circle and Sound Grammar) and are moving on to week two: Willie Nelson.

Albums are:
Party's Over (1967 collection of Willie's early singles)
Red Headed Stranger (1975 pivotal hit)
Stardust (1978 critical and sales smash)
Greatest Hits and Some That Will Be (1981 more recent best of)
Spirit (1996 critical success)

The first four are available on Emusic, the last is on iTunes.
Figure I can use this thread to discuss my own stuff and if anyone cares to join in or give input, you're welcome to.

Hi John, those links are both broken.

comix: John buys comics
games: John plays games

cool idea. i'm so used to very slowly exploring an artist's back catalog that i kinda can't imagine doing something like this -- i first said to myself "i need some Willie Nelson albums" probably 10 years ago but at the moment only have RHS and a best-of.

yeah this is awesome!

I can tell you that for Ornette it was JARRING to suddenly be dealing with the pivotal releases from a jazz giant and having to digest it all quickly.
I've had a day with Willie's greatest hits and they're all very nice but very same-y? I think this go-round is going to be a bit less rigorous.

and it's not like this is the only thing I'm listening to!
anyways, for reference, some Willie Nelson ILX threads:
OPO:Willie Nelson
Willie Nelson's "The Redheaded Stranger"
I'm loving Willie Nelson's Stardust, recommend me something
Willie Nelson as a guitarist - how does he rate?

Willie Nelson’s Country Peach Cobbler
Peach Ice Cream with Cinnamon-Sugar Shortbread Pieces & a Peach Swirl
During the initial release the FDA recalled 250,000 pints due to undeclared wheat on the ingredient label.

john, you are kind of an odd guy

yes, yes I am.
Just digging into Stardust. Oh my god this is painfully pretty. So precious and gentle.

i've never been able to get into stardust. wish i could, it might help with all the great american songbook type business

it's almost pure velveeta, but there's a lot of love and simplicity there. Nelson's voice is like some weird bridge that spans the corny and the outdated and provides a respectful honest interpretation. i diggit.

i get a similar vibe from roy orbison tbh

I bought Stardust for my mom's birthday a couple years ago and keep meaning to borrow it from her.

I played Stardust and Red Headed Stranger four times back to back in the office today until someone at the desk behind me loudly sighed and said "Really? Again?"
I think I'm at the heart of Stardust; it's some kind of bottled calm mood. Red Headed Stranger seems more complicated; it may be a concept album?
Will work on both a bit more over the long weekend and am just now working in Spirit:
http://www.the9513.com/willie-nelson-spirit/

Moods
* Ambitious
* Sentimental
* Intimate
* Refined/ Mannered
* Wistful
* Laid-Back/ Mellow
* Organic
* Amiable/ Good-Natured
* Poignant

Themes
* Reunion
* Dinner Ambiance

This is cool forks. But a problem you might run into, approaching each artist in chunks, is that you might not get as rich an experience as you would by going through their work more organically. For example, with Ornette, if you would've listened to just Shape of Jazz to come, and then moved on to some Dolphy, Ayler and latter-era Coltrane, you might have heard Free Jazz in a different, more rewarding way.

Then again, with a crash course in Ornette Coleman, your first listen to another free jazz touchstone would probably be improved, so who knows.

What's next up after Willie?

Well, that's all true. But it's not like it's my first exposure to these artists; I tried to listen to Free Jazz in high school and it felt like broken glass... just couldn't handle it. I have listened to a few other Coleman albums down the line and have seen him live, but by ramming five discs down what I got to see was Coleman's artistic progression from slightly skewed bebop, to more out there stuff, to straight chaos, to melodic chaos to entrenched/enshrined establishment figure.

I know this is a real arbitrary and contrived way to autodidact your way to the big boys table but crash course is definitely the key; I just want to be more conversant on these artists so I can hear when people are lifting from them and to see what I'm missing.

I think I'm going to add Shotgun Willie to that album collection; it was made just prior to Red Headed Stranger when Nelson seems to have been on a real tear.

On first spin, Spirit is gritty and real as saddlesores and still featherbed soft. This guy's pretty fucking good.

We've got Willie Colón slotted after Willie Nelson; we made a list of fifteen artists we both agreed we could listen to more of. There are two notable exceptions; artists that I love and have listened to extensively (Geto Boys and Max Roach, actually) but she wanted and two that work the other way (Colon and Can).

Oh, and I'm a big fan of Dolphy and the more batshit Coltrane; I'm not approaching this empty-handed o' course.

If you enjoyed your Ornette binge session at all, can I suggest Science Fiction (1971)? Charlie Haden is siiiick all over it.

Tru tru tru. Haden's somebody else I could put into the list, really.
Best case scenario, we stick with this and I can add more artists.
Others on tap besides Geto Boys, Can, Colon and Roach: Springsteen, Steely Dan, Ellington, Manu Chao, Tom Petty, Dolly Parton, The Kinks and The Stones.

Anyone who would like to give their ESSENTIAL FIVE ALBUM suggestions for any of those artists is more than welcome to do so here; for singles artists, best ofs are okay.

Emmylou Harris (solo):

Pieces of the Sky
Luxury Liner
Roses in the Snow
Live at the Ryman
Wrecking Ball

Shotgun Willie is def more accessible and interesting than RHS... this cover of A Song for You is touching.

i totally found the opposite - got into red headed stranger heavily and quickly, never got past the title track on shotgun willie (admittedly that title track is great)

RHS is meant to be a concept album, yes. so is the (nearby to these two) 'phases and stages', which is more programatically so and suffers for it - it's about a divorce, with side a and b both starting at the divorce and then following the husband (side a) and the wife (side b) through anger - despair - acceptance

i'd forgotten how little of RHS willie wrote. carla bozulich did a track by track cover of it not long ago - worked better live than on record - which was annoying

did willie ever do a musical?

He did a film version of Red Headed Stranger but I have no idea whether it's a musical per se or just a dramatization of the story w/ the songs as score.

for 5 Steely Dan, I would say: Can't Buy A Thrill, Pretzel Logic, Royal Scam, Aja, Gaucho. if you wanted to spread it more over their whole career rather than just the original run, sub in Alive In America and Two Against Nature for Royal Scam and Gaucho.

Willie Nelson's cover of Townes Van Zandt,s Marie brings me to tears. I've never even heard the Van Zandts version. It's just Willie with his Guitar. Also 'Last Thing I Needed First Thing This Morning' breaks my heart every time. But I'm easily moved by slow, sad music, country or pop.

Did Willie Nelson actually write most of his songs?

Great Thread too!

Willie's a great songwriter and wrote hits for other people before his solo career, but he's always mixed originals with covers and traditionals on his albums, and a lot of his biggest hits are covers. of his 'major' albums i think only Phases & Stages and Spirit have no covers, plus there are all-covers albums like Stardust.

Right. He wrote Crazy for Pasty Cline.

I don't know Willie Colon as inside out as I should (not just because I think he's important, but also becuase I like his work), but here are my suggestions:

I don't like El Malo so much, but you might want to start with that, and it does give you a taste of more boogaloo/Latin soul type material than the ones I'm going to list:

Lo Mato (some places mistakenly have this listed as "Lo Malo.")
Asalto Navideño (volumes 1 & 2 if possible)
El Juicio
There Goes the Neigborhood w/ Mon Rivera. (This is partly to give an idea of what he sounds like without Lavoe or Blades on hand.)
Siembra, w/ Ruben Blades

I'm also asking someone else who knows this stuff much better than I do to post a second opinion here.

Cool! Let me know, cause I'm about a half week away from letting willie go.

I sent her a link for this thread.

Okay I'm finally back on this with Colon.
Starting with Cosa Nuestra, Fantasmas, Siembra and Canciones del Solar de Los Aburridos
Much more conceptual and proggy than i would've assumed

Just one thread as far as I can see:
Willie Colon

For Dolly I recommend:

Coat of Many Colors
My Favorite Songwriter: Porter Waggoner
The Best of Dolly Parton (Volume 2 -1975)
Hear You Come Again
Little Sparrow

although tbh her discography's a mess and finding her older stuff can be really difficult

What is Fantasmas? I don't think I've even heard of that, not that that proves anything.

Ah, okay, 1981. I don't know too much from after the 70s.

Duke Ellington is tough to pick 5 because there's so much material out there.

I'd start with Never No Lament: The Blanton-Webster Band. It's 3 discs but it covers what a lot of people think is the greatest Ellington material. It's really pre-album-era (1939-1942) so it's hard to say there's a single "album" that best covers that period.

Other than that I would say:
One of the Columbia recordings - Either Ellingon at Newport 1956 or the Anatomy of a Murder Soundtrack
Money Jungle (a very atypical session, but really showcases his piano inventiveness)
One of the suites: I'm partial to Afro-Eurasian Eclipse

That's already more than five discs worth.