eMusic

Start Your Trial

Red Headed Stranger

by

Willie Nelson

 
  • Pick
  • Deal
Red Headed Stranger
view larger image View Larger

Rate it!

Avg: 4.5 (548 ratings)

A haunting and subtle song cycle that remains a touchstone to this day

  • We Say...

    Review by Andy Beta

    Music critics are a notoriously lazy bunch. Take the critical shorthand that accompanies Willie Nelson's stark and trailblazing Red Headed Stranger. Often referred to as both the first "Outlaw Country" album and the first conceptual country album, in reality, it's neither. For the former claim, Willie's riding partner Waylon Jennings beat him to the punch with 1973's Honky Tonk Heroes. As for the latter, hell, it's not even Willie's first concept album (see the he said/she said of 1974's Phases and Stages, 1971's cosmic-tinged Yesterday's Wine, or even the gimmicky country fair fare of 1968's Texas in My Soul).

    Even shorn of such hyperbole, Red Headed Stranger remains a classic, not just for country music but singer-songwriters the world over who always seek to strip things to essentials. His first album recorded for Columbia (after two classic and genre-expanding albums Shotgun Willie and Phases for Atlantic — not to mention an early career toiling in the country-politan salt mines of RCA and Liberty), Willie made a risky gambit right out of the gate. Rather than embellish his already polished songcraft or put down more of the fine soulful country songs he had steadily been releasing throughout the decade, Willie took his crack touring band (consisting of sister Bobbie Nelson, harmonica player Mickey Raphael, bassist Bee Spears and others) to an out-of-the-way studio in Garland, Texas and stripped everything to the bone. Entwining a skeletal tale about a murderous preacher around a minor song from the Acuff-Rose songbook ("Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain"), Willie then juxtaposed it with gentle instrumental waltzes like "Bandera" and "Just As I Am" to make a haunting and subtle song cycle that remains a touchstone to this day.

  • They Say...

    Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

    Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger perhaps is the strangest blockbuster country produced, a concept album about a preacher on the run after murdering his departed wife and her new lover, told entirely with brief song-poems and utterly minimal backing. It's defiantly anticommercial and it demands intense concentration -- all reasons why nobody thought it would be a hit, a story related in Chet Flippo's liner notes to the 2000 reissue. It was a phenomenal blockbuster, though, selling millions of copies, establishing Nelson as a superstar recording artist in its own right. For all its success, it still remains a prickly, difficult album, though, making the interspersed concept of Phases and Stages sound shiny in comparison. It's difficult because it's old-fashioned, sounding like a tale told around a cowboy campfire. Now, this all reads well on paper, and there's much to admire in Nelson's intimate gamble, but it's really elusive, as the themes get a little muddled and the tunes themselves are a bit bare. It's undoubtedly distinctive -- and it sounds more distinctive with each passing year -- but it's strictly an intellectual triumph and, after a pair of albums that were musically and intellectually sound, it's a bit of a letdown, no matter how successful it was.

  • You Say...

    Write a Review

    I would like to say...

    Artist: Willie Nelson

    Album: Red Headed Stranger

    Review Title: (maximum 50 characters)

    Your Review: (maximum 1,000 characters)

    Cancel

    Please keep your comments to the recordings themselves, and be courteous and respectful. Thanks! For further info, read our Community Guidelines.

“ The indie iTunes — Hardcore music fans are migrating to eMusic, the iTunes Music Store's cheaper, cooler cousin.”


Rolling Stone
Start Your Trial

Recently Viewed

Back
Forward

© 1998-2009 eMusic.com Inc. eMusic and the eMusic logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks in the USA or other countries. All rights reserved.

All Music Guide © 1992 - 2009 All Media Guide, LLC
Portions of content provided by All Music Guide, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC

Facebook®, YouTube, Flickr™ and Wikipedia® are registered trademarks of their respective owners, Facebook Inc., Google, Inc., Yahoo! Inc. and Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Neither Facebook Inc., Google, Inc., Yahoo! Inc. nor Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. are partners or sponsors of eMusic. eMusic uses the Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Wikipedia API but is not endorsed or certified by Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Wikipedia. eMusic does not pre-screen, monitor, endorse nor assume any liability for websites, contents, products, services or claims made by Facebook, YouTube, Flickr™ and Wikipedia®.

Legal or copyright question regarding Facebook, YouTube, Flickr or Wikipedia content on eMusic? Please email us.