Spotlight Album Review: Willie Nelson "A Beautiful Time"

Willie Nelson is music’s Energizer bunny. Now just past 89 years old, he’s got a summer tour planned, in spite of some pulmonary issues (all that pot smoking will do that). And it feels as though he puts out a new record every six months, sometimes alternating tribute albums (a couple for Sinatra) and the Willie Nelson Family with new material. Now he’s released A Beautiful Time, and it is, in fact, beautiful, one of his best albums in a while, and the New Folk Spotlight of the month.

Much of the credit must go to Buddy Cannon, Willie’s longtime writing partner and producer, who presided over the sessions at various Nashville studios. One of their standout compositions, “Energy Follows Thought,” contains thoughtful lines indeed: “Imagine what you want/But get out of the way/Remember energy follows thought/So be careful what you say.” Willie’s advancing age saturates some of their lyrics. “Live Every Day,” the song goes, “like it’s gonna be your last one/And one day you’re gonna be right. And when Willie sings in an upbeat number, “I don’t go to funerals/And I won’t be at mine,” you take him at his word.  

The backing band includes Willie’s perennial harmonica player, Mickey Raphael, but not his sister Bobbie, his longtime piano player, who died in March at the age of 91. Intimations of mortality are inevitable. They also occur in “I’ll Love You Till the Day I Die” (written by Rodney Crowell and Chris Stapleton) and “Dusty Bottles” (written by Jim “Moose” Brown, Scotty Emerick, and Don Sampson), which observes, “There’s something said for getting older/Dusty bottles pour a finer glass of wine.” The line that follows, “an old beat-up guitar just sounds better” is clearly a nod to Willie’s beloved beat-up Trigger, and then the kicker, “wisdom only comes with time.”

There are a couple unexpected covers. Leonard Cohen’s “Tower of Song” is a perfect choice: “Well, all my friends are gone and my hair is grey/I ache in the places where I used to play.”  The nod to Hank Williams seems apt: “I said to Hank Williams, ‘How lonely does it get?’/Hank Williams hasn’t answered yet.” And this elegiac note:

I see you standing on the other side
I don't know how the river got so wide
I loved you baby, way back when
And all the bridges are burning that we might have crossed
But I feel so close to everything that we lost
We'll never, we'll never have to lose it again

I have to think that the other cover, “With a Little Help from My Friends,” is a tribute to all the fans that road warrior Willie has earned over the years. Speaking of which, the title track, “A Beautiful Time” (by Shawn Camp), is a fond look back to life on the road. The album closer is a sweet valediction, which could be for a personal friend or the whole audience:

If I could make my time with you stand still
There'd be no time that I would want to kill
I'd drink in every drop of you and never get my fill
If I could make my time with you stand still

 They used to say that cowboys would die with their spurs on. It’s clear that this outlaw cowboy, Willie Nelson, will die with his guitar strapped on. We’re blessed to still have his genius with us.

(Photo by Pamela Springsteen)