Willie Nelson: Beautiful Time (Legacy)
The country maestro is 89, and this is his 97th studio album – it’s as good as anything he’s ever done
‘There’s something to be said for gettin’ older,” a creaky voice croons with languid authority over a bed of sighing guitars. “Dusty bottles pour a finer glass of wine / An old beat-up guitar just sounds better / And wisdom only comes with time.”
Well, if anyone should know, it’s Willie Nelson. Beautiful Time is the country maestro’s 97th studio album, released on his 89th birthday. Take a moment to contemplate that lifetime in music. Nelson has been on the road since 1956, as long as any living and still working musician. During the decades of stardom since, he has been knocking out almost two albums a year, yet there is nothing hackneyed about his art. Beautiful Time is a tenderly elegiac and sweetly uplifting collection every bit as smart, funny and moving as anything the great man has ever released, showcasing an artist at the peak of his powers with things he still wants to say.
“Live every day like it was your last one,” Nelson advocates on the jaunty Live Every Day, adding the winking proviso: “And one day you’re gonna be right.” It is one of six new Nelson originals, every one replete with quotable lines, delivered with his loose sense of timing in a voice that has got more interestingly gnarly without losing its innate melodiousness.
At his age, everything Nelson touches is inevitably shaded with mortality, and Nelson leans into it, imparting pearls of wisdom with the quiet authority of someone not interested in wasting his breath on trivialities. Energy Follows Thought proceeds at a stately pace, with Nelson articulating a personal philosophy more new age hippy than country conservative: “Imagine what you want and get out of the way / Remember energy follows thought, so be careful what you say.” The surface ripples with spectral guitar lines, a reminder that Nelson is also one of the most distinctive guitarists country has ever produced, with a gypsy jazz touch drawing on his hero Django Reinhardt.
The provocatively titled I Don’t Go to Funerals has a classic Nelson pay-off: “And I won’t be at mine.” It’s a cheeky romp that looks forward optimistically to a country paradise where Nelson conjures “a big old picking party” with “me and Waylon, John and Kris and our sweetheart Patsy Cline”.
Since his outlaw compatriots Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson have all shuffled off this mortal coil, Nelson (along with Dolly Parton) has effectively assumed a status as the living repository of old country values. There is a clutch of fine songs here, written for Nelson by some of Nashville’s leading contemporary tunesmiths, including the title track (a celebration of life on the road) and elegiac ballad Dusty Bottles that are surely destined for classic status. Nelson also offers highly personal readings of The Beatles’ With a Little Help From My Friends and Leonard Cohen’s masterful Tower of Song. Like Cohen, Nelson grapples with old age fearlessly, offering himself as an inspirational guide to the dimming of the light. “My life has been a wonder and I found my place in time,” he asserts on I Don’t Go to Funerals. Amen to that.
Also out Let’s Eat Grandma: Two Ribbons (Transgressive); Kehlani: Blue Water Road (Atlantic); Bloc Party: Alpha Games (Infectious); Blossoms: Ribbon Around the Bomb (EMI)