1. Little House On The Hill (Lyndel Rhodes)
2. Old Timer (Donnie Fritz / Lenny LeBlanc)
3. True Love (Willie Nelson / Buddy Cannon)
4. Delete And Fast Forward (Willie Nelson / Buddy Cannon)
5. A Woman’s Love (Mike Reid / Sam Hunter)
6. Your Memory Has A Mind Of Its Own (Willie Nelson / Buddy Cannon)
7. Butterfly (Sonny Throckmorton / Mark Sherrill)
8. Still Not Dead (Willie Nelson / Buddy Cannon)
9. God’s Problem Child (Jamey Johnson / Tony Joe White)
10. It Gets Easier (Willie Nelson / Buddy Cannon)
11. Lady Luck (Willie Nelson / Buddy Cannon)
12. I Made A Mistake (Willie Nelson / Buddy Cannon)
13. He Won’t Ever Be Gone (Gary Nicholson)
The latest album from a classic artist and the revisiting of a classic album by a contemporary act are in the Ear Bliss spotlight this week. Now in his 80s, we should all be blessed with the health and work ethic of Willie Nelson. He tours endlessly and continues to release at least one album every year. His latest called God’s Problem Child is Willie to the bone (no pun intended!) and continues his collaboration with the legendary Nashville producer Buddy Cannon.
Willie Nelson
God’s Problem Child
Sony Legacy Recordings
Having just hit the age of 84, Willie Nelson shows no signs of slowing down from both the recording and touring perspectives. As his latest album called God’s Problem Child attests, he is also not just mailing it in. His first album of new songs since 2014’s Band of Brothers, the Red-Headed Stranger is both in fine voice and picking his old guitar Trigger as good as ever. The album finds him teaming up once again with longtime collaborator and legendary Nashville-based producer Buddy Cannon. (In addition to producing, Cannon is also credited as co-writer on seven of the album’s 13 songs.) Ever the restless one when it comes to style, God’s Problem Child is Nelson’s usual highly listenable brew of country, swing, jazz, and even the blues. The latter is exemplified by the title track written by Jamey Johnson and Tony Joe White, a laid back number that includes vocals by both writers along with the late Leon Russell on what just may be his final recording. It’s punctuated by some fine blues guitar picking by Willie himself. It’s just one of many moments from an album filled with them that begins with the “Whiskey River” styled ramblin’ country of “On the Hill” and closes with a tribute to Merle Haggard (“He Won’t Ever Be Gone”). In between it moves from Willie pondering his own mortality in both serious (“Old Timer”) and humorous (“Still Not Dead” on which Nelson sings “I woke again still not dead gain today” fashions, not to mention the aging process (“It Gets Easier” and “Your Memory Has a Mind of Its Own”). Speaking frankly, you just can’t wrong with a Willie Nelson album and God’s Problem Child is yet another keeper. Visit www.legacyrecordings.com.
Old Crow Medicine Show
50 Years of Blonde on Blonde
Columbia Records
It has been 50 years since the release of the album Blonde on Blonde. Ask someone to pick their favorite Bob Dylan album and no doubt it will be in the running. The country and roots collective Old Crow Medicine Show burst on the Americana scene in the late aughts thanks to a cover of a relatively obscure Dylan song called “Wagon Wheel.” It helped establish them as one of the leaders of the Americana genre. The group takes the Dylan thing up another notch with its newly released recreation of the Dylan classic. 50 Years of Blonde on Blonde salutes that classic album while also doubling as the band’s major label debut. Let’s get to it.
The lift-off point for popularity for Nashville-based roots music group Old Crow Medicine Show can be traced to a cover of the little known Bob Dylan song “Wagon Wheel.†It was the final track on the band’s debut album O.C.M.S. in 2004. All there was to the tune when Dylan wrote it in the mid-1970s was a chorus. 25 years later, Old Crow’s Ketch Secor added lyrical verses to the tune and the rest, so they say, is history. The song has gone onto become OCMS’s signature tune, not to mention spawning numerous cover versions. It also brought on an association of sorts between OCMS and Bob Dylan. The band took it to the max in May of 2016 at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville saluting the 50th anniversary of Dylan’s classic album Blonde on Blonde. That performance is captured on the newly release tribute called 50 Years of Blonde on Blonde. With it rootsy mix of instrumentation (guitars, banjo, fiddle all figure prominently) and performing in a loose and freewheeling “string band†style, OCMS do the Dylan opus nothing but justice across the 14 tracks comprising 50 Years of Blonde on Blonde. Then again, these are songs that have truly stood the test of time that are nothing but energized by the treatment given them by Old Crow Medicine Show. Dylan or OCMS fan, you really can’t go wrong with 50 Years of Blonde on Blonde. Visit www.crowmedicine.com.