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Rodeos agree with Willie Nelson.

There is something about the quality of his crisp, twangy, slightly mournful voice that goes hand-in-hand with the smells of the chutes and the working stock, the roughhewn textures of the rigging and the saddles and the dust of the arena that hangs in the air after the last bull has thrown the last cowboy.

Acoustically, the Travis County Expo Center, where Nelson performed at the Star of Texas Fair and Rodeo on Tuesday, is, let’s say, a light year or two from Lincoln Center. (On his bus, prior to the show, Nelson proudly screened a forthcoming DVD of he and jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis performing at that very venue).

And, as with most rodeo concerts, the musical part of the program was truncated, just an hour long — barely more than a soundcheck by the marathon standards Nelson sets onstage.

But for an audience replete with barbecue, beer and bareback bronc riding, a Willie Nelson concert full of sad songs, waltzes and honky-tonk standards was the perfect nightcap to the festivities.

Nelson seems to have recovered completely from the carpal tunnel surgery he underwent a couple of years ago (he’s opening shows with the demanding “Whiskey River” again, rather than easing into his set) and his playing has regained seemingly all of its fluidity and power.

During the medley of “Funny How Time Slips Away/Crazy/Night Life,” which he has been playing since just after the Red Sea parted, he found new ways into the venerable music by alternately hammering the strings and coaxing out silvery filigrees of melody. As much as his set seems carved in stone, Nelson still finds a way to eke out something fresh and unexpected in every performance, even at a rodeo gig that lesser performers might have phoned in.

Along with the mandatory hits — “Good-Hearted Woman,” “Me and Paul,” “Blue Eyes Cryin’ In the Rain” (which segued neatly into Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies”) — Nelson also essayed some more recent material, including the tongue-in-cheek “Superman” and “You Don’t Think I’m Funny Anymore” and his meltingly lovely cover of Kris Kristofferson’s “Moment of Forever.”

The evening ended with Nelson joined onstage by his 6-year-old great-grandson Zach, who joined the him in singing “Peaceful Solution,” a new Nelsonian plea for personal and political renewal and reconciliation.

Photo by Jay Janner
Willie Nelson, on his bus, before his Star of Texas Fair and Rodeo performance.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 12:36 pm and is filed under Fans, News and Reviews, Pictures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.