Let the celebrating begin! I don’t care what the reasons are for the release of this great collection of music by Willie Nelson; but his 75th birthday is as good a reason as any.  I think they could have worked a little harder on designing the cover for the set, but the contents more than compensate. And there is a book inside, with liner notes by Mickey Raphael and Joe Nick Patoski, and never-before-seen pictures to look forward to.
The 4-cd, 100-song box set, is a comprehensive collection of material, and rivals the Bear Family, of Germany’s, boxed sets such as “It’s Been Rough and Rocky Travelin'” and “I Guess Nashville Was the Roughest,” and is set to be released on April 1, 2008, as part of the celebration of Wille’s 75th birthday, on April 30, 2008.
The set includes 50-plus years of recordings from 1954 to 2007, including hit singles and rare tracks from sixty albums on a dozen different labels.
The press release states that it will include four historic local Texas singles (1954/55 to 1960) to dozens of studio & live career touchstones, including collaborations with Waylon Jennings, Leon Russell, Roger Miller, Ray Price, Ray Charles, Merle Haggard, Webb Pierce, Julio Iglesias, Faron Young, Hank Snow, Highwaymen (Waylon, Johnny Cash, Kristofferson), Lee Ann Womack, and more.
Author Joe Nick Patoski and band member Mickey Raphael both contributed the liner notes. “Motivated by the desire to do good for those who did good by him, he is still playing music for all the right reasons,” Patoski states, “for the sake of music, and for the people who created that music. That drive and desire have rewarded him with a well-spent musical life, documented by these recordings that show a man in full, always changing, always moving, forever on the road again.”
ONE HELL OF A RIDE by WILLIE NELSON
(Columbia/Legacy 88697 13915 2)
Disc One
Title Chart Source Label Recorded
1. When I’ve Sang My Last – single Sarg 280 1954-55 Hillbilly Song
2. No Place For Me – Willie Nelson Records single – 1957
3. Man With the Blues – single D Records 1959
4. Nite Life – single by “Paul Buskirk & His Little Men, feat. Hugh Nelson” Rx 502 1960
5. Hello Walls – And Then I Wrote Liberty 1961
6. Funny How Time Slips Away – And Then I Wrote Liberty 1961
7. Crazy – And Then I Wrote Liberty 1961
8. Half a Man C#25 Here’s Willie Nelson Liberty 1962
9. Mr. Record Man – Country Willie—His Own Songs RCA Victor 1965
10. One In a Row – Make Way For Willie RCA Victor 1966
11. The Party’s Over C#24 Party’s Over and Other Great Willie Nelson Songs RCA Victor 1966
12. Texas In My Soul – Texas In My Soul RCA Victor 1967
13. Good Times C#44 Good Times RCA Victor 1968
14. Sweet Memories C#4 Good Times RCA Victor 1968
15. Little Things C#22 Good Times RCA Victor 1967
16. Any Old Arms Won’t Do – My Own Peculiar Way RCA Victor 1968
17. Everybody’s Talkin’ – Both Sides Now RCA Victor 1969-70
18. Pins and Needles (In My Heart) – Both Sides Now RCA Victor 1969-70
19. Once More With Feeling C#42 Both Sides Now RCA Victor 1969-70
20. I Gotta Get Drunk C#55 Both Sides Now RCA Victor 1969
21. Laying My Burdens Down C#68 Laying My Burdens Down RCA Victor 1970
22. What Can You Do To Me Now – Willie Nelson and Family RCA Victor 1970
23. Kneel At the Feet Of Jesus – Willie Nelson and Family RCA Victor 1970
24. I’m A Memory C#22 Willie Nelson and Family RCA Victor 1970
25. Family Bible – Yesterday’s Wine RCA Victor 1971
26. Summer Of Roses – Yesterday’s Wine RCA Victor 1971
27. Yesterday’s Wine C#62 Yesterday’s Wine RCA Victor 1971
28. Me and Paul C#62 Yesterday’s Wine RCA Victor 1971
29. Words Don’t Fit the Picture C#73 Words Don’t Fit the Picture RCA Victor 1971
Disc Two
Title Chart Source Label Recorded
1. Good Hearted Woman (Waylon & Willie) C#1, H#25 Wanted! The Outlaws RCA 1972
2. You Left a Long, Long Time Ago – The Willie Way RCA Victor 1971
3. She’s Not For You C#43 Willie – Before His Time RCA Victor 1965
4. You Ought To Hear Me Cry C#16 Willie – Before His Time RCA Victor 1967
5. It Should Be Easier Now – Willie – Before His Time RCA Victor 1965
6. Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys (Waylon & Willie) C#1, H#42 Waylon & Willie RCA 1977
7. If You Can Touch Her At All (Waylon & Willie) C#5 Waylon & Willie RCA 1973
8. I Can Get Off On You (Waylon & Willie) – Waylon & Willie RCA 1977
9. Blackjack County Chain C#21 Minstrel Man RCA Victor 1967
10. Johnny One Time C#36 Don’t You Ever Get Tired RCA Victor 1968
11. Bring Me Sunshine C#13 All Time Greatest Hits RCA 1968
12. I Just Can’t Let You Say Goodbye C#48 All Time Greatest Hits RCA 1965
13. Shotgun Willie C#60 Shotgun Willie Atlantic 1973
14. Sad Songs and Waltzes – Shotgun Willie Atlantic 1973
15. The Troublemaker – The Troublemaker Columbia 1973
16. Uncloudy Day C#4 The Troublemaker Columbia 1973
17. Bloody Mary Morning C#17 Phases and Stages Atlantic 1974
18. I Still Can’t Believe You’re Gone C#51 Phases and Stages Atlantic 1974
19. Blue Eyes Crying In the Rain C#1, H#21 Red Headed Stranger Columbia 1975
20. I’d Have To Be Crazy C#11 The Sound In Your Mind Columbia 1976
21. If You’ve Got the Money I’ve Got the Time C#1 The Sound In Your Mind Columbia 1976
22. Always Late (With Your Kisses) – To Lefty From Willie Columbia 1977
23. She’s Gone, Gone, Gone – To Lefty From Willie Columbia 1977
24. I Never Go Around Mirrors – To Lefty From Willie Columbia 1977
25. Stardust – Stardust Columbia 1977
26. Georgia On My Mind C#1, H#84 Stardust Columbia 1977
27. A Song For You (Live) – Willie And Family Live Columbia 1978
Disc Three
Title Chart Source Label Recorded
1. Whiskey River (Live) C#12 Willie And Family Live Columbia 1978
2. Till I Gain Control Again (Live) – Willie And Family Live Columbia 1978
3. Stay a Little Longer (Live) – Willie And Family Live Columbia 1978
4. Heartbreak Hotel (w/Leon Russell) C#1 One For the Road Columbia 1979
5. One For My Baby (and One More For The Road)(w/Leon Russell) – One For the Road Columbia 1979
6. Help Me Make It Through The Night C#4 W.N. Sings Kristofferson Columbia 1979
7. Midnight Rider C#6 The Electric Horseman o.s. Columbia 1979
8. My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys C#1, H#44 The Electric Horseman o.s. Columbia 1979
9. Crazy Arms C#16 San Antonio Rose Columbia 1980
10. On The Road Again C#1, H#20 Honeysuckle Rose o.s. Columbia 1979
11. Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground C#1 Honeysuckle Rose o.s. Columbia 1979
12. Mona Lisa C#11,AC#36 Somewhere Over the Rainbow Columbia 1980
13. I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter C#26 Somewhere Over the Rainbow Columbia
14. Always On My Mind C#1, H#5 Always On My Mind Columbia 1981
15. Old Friends (with Roger Miller and Ray Price) C#19 Old Friends Columbia 1981
16. Pancho & Lefty (w/Merle Haggard) C#1, AC#21 Pancho & Lefty Epic 1982
17. Reasons To Quit (w/Merle Haggard) C#6 Pancho & Lefty Epic 1982
18. In the Jailhouse Now(w/Webb Pierce) C#72 In the Jailhouse Now Columbia 1981
19. Why Do I Have To Choose (with Waylon Jennings) C#3 Take It To The Limit Columbia 1982
20. City Of New Orleans C#1, AC#30 City Of New Orleans Columbia 1983
21. To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before (with Julio Iglesias) C31, H#5 (album by Julio Iglesias) 1100 Bel Air Place Columbia 1984
22. Three Days (with Faron Young) – Funny How Time Slips Away Columbia
23. Touch Me (with Faron Young) – Funny How Time Slips Away Columbia
Disc Four
Title Chart Source Label Recorded
1. Write Your Own Songs – Music From Songwriter o.s. Columbia 1984
2. Heart Of Gold C#44 Partners Columbia
3. I’m Movin’ On (w/Hank Snow) – Brand On My Heart Columbia 1984
4. Seven Spanish Angels (with Ray Charles) C#1 Friendship Columbia 1984
5. Highwayman (w/Waylon Jennings, J. Cash and K. Kristofferson) C#1 Highwayman Columbia 1984
6. Living In The Promiseland C#1 The Promiseland Columbia 1985
7. What A Wonderful World – What A Wonderful World Columbia 1988
8. Country Willie – Who’ll Buy My Memories: The IRS Tapes Columbia 1990
9. Graceland C#70 Across The Borderline Columbia 1992
10. Valentine – Across The Borderline Columbia 1992
11. What Was It You Wanted – Across The Borderline Columbia 1992
12. Still Is Still Movin’ To Me – Across The Borderline Columbia 1992
13. Too Sick To Pray – Spirit Island 1996
14. Everywhere I Go (with Emmylou Harris) – Teatro Island
15. My Own Peculiar Way – Teatro Island
16. Nuages – Night And Day Free Falls 1999
17. Rainbow Connection – Rainbow Connection Island 2001
18. Mendocino County Line (with Lee Ann Womack) C#22 The Great Divide Island 2001
19. The Harder They Come – Countryman Lost Highway 1996
20. Bubbles In My Beer – You Don’t Know Me – The Songs Of Cindy Walker Lost Highway 2006
21. When I’ve Sang My Last Hillbilly Song – One Hell Of a Ride Col./Leg. 2007
read more from the press release here —>
More from the Press Release:
Included is a 100-page full-color booklet with introductory essay by Mickey Raphael, and 8,000-word biographical liner notes essay by Texas journalist Joe Nick Patoski
“The 100 recordings inside this box tell the tale of a record-ing career beyond prolific, of a life that mirrors the evolution of audio recording technology, of a singer-songwriter who defines Texas and America, and of a man for whom it was always about the music.”   – from the liner notes written by Joe Nick Patoski
For the truly multi-dimensional Willie Nelson (b. 1933) – singer, songwriter, Gypsy jazz guitarist, producer, bandleader, family man, perennially touring musician, Hollywood actor, entrepreneur, rancher, golfer, proud Texan, and godfather of music’s Outlaw Country movement – it has really been ONE HELL OF A RIDE.
Willie Nelson has been making music over the course of eight distinct decades – from the 1930s to the ’00s – and has been a recording artist for more than five of those decades.
For the first time, in honor of his big seven-five, the appropriately titled box set ONE HELL OF A RIDE draws together the entire span of Willie’s recording career, with tracks representing a dozen different record labels.
 The box set opens with Willie’s first single recording under his own name, “When I’ve Sang My Last Hillbilly Song” (cut in 1954 or ’55 for a small Texas label, but not released
by the owner for another two decades)Â and closes with a brand new version of the song recorded by Willie in 2007.
It is said to include 100 of Willie’s personal favorite tracks –– and a magnificent 100-page full-color book with dozens of never-before seen photographs, and full discographical information. Liner notes include an introduction by long-time harmonica player Mickey Raphael and an 8,000-word liner notes essay by Texas musician and music journalist Joe Nick Patoski (author of the upcoming biography Willie Nelson: An Epic Life, Little, Brown & Co., April 2008).
“It has been an amazing education,” Mickey Raphael writes in the introduction to ONE HELL OF A RIDE. “Willie’s drummer, Paul English taught me the subtleties of music, and Willie taught me the mysteries. When the band is cookin’ it becomes a living, breathing organism that unites with itself and the audience.”
Willie’s relationship with his audience has been honed virtually since childhood. He and his older sister Bobbie Lee were born in Abbott, Texas, off Route 35 about half-way between Waco and Dallas. Their parents Ira and Myrtle were itinerant traveling guitarists who mostly left the kids to be raised by their paternal grandparents, who were Shape Note singing teachers and songwriters themselves. The musical DNA passed to both children, as “Willie Hugh was writing and reciting poetry by the time he was four,” Patoski writes, “and after he got his first guitar two years later, began emulating his grandmother and his cousin by writing songs by lantern light after supper.” They sang in church and school, and young Willie even sat in with Rejcek’s Bohemian Polka Band; by the time he was 11, he completed his first hand-printed songbook of originals.
Influenced mightily by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, Willie’s travels took him far and wide, from his first stint at age 13 in Bud Fletcher and the Texans (led by 16-year old Bobbie Lee’s first husband), to a brief stay in the Air Force, stationed in Korea, to a sideman gig in San Antonio’s Dave Isbell and the Mission City Playboys.
During one of his first gigs as a disc jockey, Willie used the station facilities to record a couple of tunes, including “When I’ve Sang My Last Hillbilly Song,” which he sent to Sarg Records. The owner never responded, but when Willie became a star 20 years later, the tunes were released as a 45 rpm single on Sarg – with the A side now the opening track of ONE HELL OF A RIDE. When Willie and his first wife and their kids moved cross-country to Oregon to join Myrtle, Willie continued to work as a DJ and play in local bands. He financed his own self-released single in 1957, “No Place For Me,” and it is track two on this collection.
Advised to pursue his musical career in Nashville, Willie (and family) left the northwest, but settled back in Fort Worth where Bobbie Lee and Ira lived. Willie cut the one-track “Man With The Blues” for Pappy Daley’s D Records in Houston – rarity number three on ONE HELL OF A RIDE. Ironically, Pappy turned down Willie’s next offering, the all-time classic “Nite Life,” so it was released (writes Patoski) “on the sly on the Rx label under the name of Paul Buskirk and His Little Men, featuring Hugh Nelson” – rarity number four.
A cornerstone of Willie lore has him ‘giving away’ rights to his song “Family Bible” for $100 to Claude Gray, which established his career as a Top 10 country hit. The experience finally spurred Willie’s move to Nashville in 1960, where he was befriended by Hank Cochran, who got him signed to Pamper Music, the publishing company owned by Ray Price. Willie’s breakthrough came in 1961, the year Faron Young cut the #1 hit “Hello Walls,” Billy Walker cut “Funny How Time Slips Away,” and Patsy Cline recorded “Crazy.” The ‘trifecta’ earned Willie his first real label deal at Liberty Records, which issued his debut LP in 1962, And Then I Wrote (with his versions of “Hello Walls,” “Crazy,” and “Funny How Time Slips Away”).
After a second Liberty album in ’63 and a short stay at Fred Foster’s Monument Records in ’64, Willie was signed to RCA Records in 1965. He cut some 14 LPs for the label over the next seven years, some 33 tracks heard on ONE HELL OF A RIDE, nearly all of them under the production aegis of Chet Atkins or Felton Jarvis. Though much maligned, Willie’s RCA Victor output yielded a fair share of mid-chart sides, all produced with the Nashville studio system.
Willie’s RCA years afforded him a platform for his originals, which poured out like wildfire, and also enabled him to delve into such genres as folk music, jazz, honky tonk, Western swing, and gospel. But RCA’s efforts to shoehorn Willie into the conventional C&W mold never quite let his true nature surface. In 1970, after his farmhouse burned down in Ridgetop, Tennessee, Willie moved his family back to Texas. He soon became the kingpin of Austin’s hotbed of honky tonk, psychedelic country, and ’70s rock, populated by hillbilly hippies, folk singers, ‘ropers & dopers’ and dominated by the Armadillo World Headquarters concert stage.
By the time his RCA deal ended in 1972, Willie had come to the attention of Jerry Wexler at Atlantic Records. The label’s first country music signing, Willie cut two groundbreaking LPs on Atlantic, 1973’s Shotgun Willie (“Shotgun Willie,” “Sad Songs And Waltzes”) and 1974’s Phases & Stages (“Bloody Mary Morning,” “I Still Can’t Believe You’re Gone”). A third LP Atlantic went unreleased, the gospel-rooted The Troublemaker, shelved when the label abruptly shuttered its Nashville division in ’74; the album was subsequently issued on Columbia in 1976. Though not commercial successes, the Atlantic LPs were critically hailed and signaled the onset of a new musical genre that would overtake the music for decades to come: Outlaw Country.
The turning point was Willie’s self-produced Columbia debut LP of 1975, the concept album Red Headed Stranger, #1 for 5 weeks of its 120-week stay, his first RIAA double-platinum record on the strength of its centerpiece, “Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain.” Capitalizing on the new genre, RCA repackaged an LP’s worth of left-of-center tracks by Willie, Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter, and Tompall Glaser as Wanted: The Outlaws. It went to #1 and its first single, “Good Hearted Woman,” a duet by Waylon & Willie also hit #1. The project swept the annual CMA (Country Music Association) Awards for Vocal Duo Of the Year, Single Of the Year, and Album Of the Year; while “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” won Willie his first Grammy Award, for Best Male Country Vocal.
Eighteen years at Columbia (1975 to 1993) was a long time – they encompassed five U.S. Presidents, to put it in perspective, and more than 30 album releases. He charted 12 #1 country albums for the label, and another 12 reached top 5; at the same time, there were 16 #1 country singles on Columbia, and another 30 that reached the Top 40.
Among Willie’s top ranking #1 C&W albums (many of which crossed-over to the pop chart) on Columbia were:
* The Sound in Your Mind (1976, “I’d Have To Be Crazy,” “If You’ve Got the Money I’ve Got the Time”);
* The Troublemaker (1976, “Uncloudy Day”);
* Stardust (1978, “Stardust,” “Georgia On My Mind”), its 551 weeks on the C&W chart ranks second only (on any Billboard chart ranking) to Pink Floyd’s 741 weeks for Dark Side Of the Moon;
* Willie & Family Live (1978, “A Song For You,” “Whiskey River,” “Till I Gain Control Again,” “Stay a Little Longer”);
* Honeysuckle Rose soundtrack (1980, “On the Road Again,” “Angel Flying Too Close To the Ground”);
* Always On My Mind (1982, named for the #1 title tune);
* Pancho & Lefty with Merle Haggard (1982, “Pancho & Lefty,” “Reasons To Quit,” originally on Epic, reissued in 2003 on Columbia/Legacy);
* City Of New Orleans (1984, named for the Steve Goodman title tune);
* Highwayman (1984, named for the Jimmy Webb title tune); and
* The Promiseland (1986, “Living in the Promiseland”).
In addition to his duets and (often) full-album collaborations on Columbia with Leon Russell, Roger Miller, Ray Price, Merle Haggard, Webb Pierce, Faron Young, Hank Snow, Highwaymen (Waylon, Johnny Cash, Kristofferson), there are also two other important associations documented on this collection, both from 1984: “To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before,” a #1 Country/pop/AC crossover smash with Julio Iglesias on his Columbia LP 1100 Bel Air Place; and “Seven Spanish Angels,” a #1 Country hit with Ray Charles on his Columbia LP Friendship.
Willie received the Academy of Country Music’s Pioneer Award in 1991, was inducted into the Country Music Hall Of Fame in 1993, and was fêted at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1998. In 1995, Revolutions Of Time: The Journey 1975-1993 was released by Columbia/Legacy, a 60-song boxed set divided onto three thematic CDs: Pilgrimage, Sojourns, and Exodus.
In 1996, he began a 5-year non-exclusive deal as the first Country artist ever signed to Island Records, which resulted in four albums: 1996’s Spirit (“Too Sick To Pray”); 1998’s Teatro (“Everywhere I Go” with Emmylou Harris, and “My Own Peculiar Way”); 2001’s Rainbow Connection (named for the Muppets’ song); and 2002’s The Great Divide (“Mendocino County Line” with Lee Ann Womack). (In between, he cut a smooth jazz instrumental album, Night And Day, for the Free Falls label in 1999, which finally gave him a chance to record a long-time favorite, Django Reinhardt’s “Nuages.”)
Willie then moved to Nashville’s Lost Highway Records, another label in the Def Jam Island group, for whom he has recorded nearly a dozen albums since 2003. Among them have been 2006’s Countryman, recorded in Los Angeles and Jamaica with producer Don Was, featuring a version of Jimmy Cliff’s “The Harder They Come”; and also from 2006, You Don’t Know Me—The Songs Of Cindy Walker, originally intended as a multi-artist production, but regrooved as
Willie’s tribute to the Texas songwriter, who passed away at age 87 just one week after the album’s release.
ONE HELL OF A RIDE ends up where it began, with “When I’ve Sang My Last Hillbilly Song,” newly recorded by Willie Nelson in 2007.