WILLIE NELSON – The Complete Atlantic Sessions

Release Date – 06/20/2006

THE COMPLETE ATLANTIC SESSIONS contains remastered versions of Nelson’s two groundbreaking Atlantic releases — Shotgun Willie, his 1973 debut and “possibly his finest album ever” (All Music Guide), and Phases And Stages, his 1974 follow-up and “one of the great concept albums overall” (All Music Guide) — expanded with studio outtakes, alternate versions, and unreleased music. The third disc, Live at The Texas Opry House, features rare and unreleased performances recorded in Austin in 1974.

Recorded in New York, Shotgun Willie marked Nelson’s break with Nashville and the city’s monolithic sound. Touching on everything from redneck rock and Texas swing to “Sad Songs And Waltzes,” the album’s freewheeling spirit helped spark the outlaw country movement with songs like the horn-punctuated title track, a cover Bob Wills’ “Stay All Night (Stay A Little Longer)” as well as “Whiskey River,” Nelson’s customary show opener for more than 30 years. The expanded version of Shotgun Willie features 12 bonus tracks, half of which are previously unreleased including alternate takes of “Whiskey River” and “A Song For You” along with outtakes of “Save Your Tears” and “I Drank All Of Our Precious Love Away.”

Nelson’s follow-up, Phases And Stages, was one of country’s earliest concept records and remains one of its best. Telling the story of a failing marriage, the first side of the album is dedicated to songs from his perspective while the other is devoted to songs from her point of view. Recorded in Muscle Shoals by legendary producer, Jerry Wexler the album featured some of Nelson’s most poignant writing including “Pretend I Never Happened,” “I Still Can’t Believe You’re Gone,” and “It’s Not Supposed To Be That Way.” The expanded version of Phases And Stages features ten bonus tracks including eight previously unreleased songs such as an alternate versions of “Bloody Mary Morning,” “No Love Around,” and “Heaven And Hell.”

The final disc, Live at The Texas Opry House, contains 16 live performances by Nelson and his band — steel guitarist Jimmy Day; fiddler Johnny Gimble; pianist Bobbie Nelson; bassist, Bea Spears; drummer Paul English; and Mickey Raphael on harmonica. Recorded by Wexler June 29 and 30, 1974 at The Texas Opry House in Austin, the album captures the band blazing through “Whiskey River,” “Me And Paul,” and “Good Hearted Woman.” While many of the performances featured here debuted on Rhino’s out-of-print 1993 album, The Classic, Unreleased Collection, five performances are previously unreleased including “Shotgun Willie,” “You Look Like The Devil,” an electric version of “Bloody Mary Morning” as well as a medley of Nelson’s early hits, “Funny How Time Slips Away,” “Crazy,” and “Night Life.”

THE COMPLETE ATLANTIC SESSIONS
Track Listing

Disc 1

  1. “Shotgun Willie”
  2. “Whiskey River”
  3. “Sad Songs And Waltzes”
  4. “Local Memory”
  5. “Slow Down Old World”
  6. “Stay All Night (Stay A Little Longer)”
  7. “Devil In A Sleeping Bag”
  8. “She’s Not For You”
  9. “Bubbles In My Beer”
  10. “You Look Like The Devil”
  11. “So Much To Do”
  12. “A Song For You”

Bonus Tracks

  1. “I Gotta Have Something I Ain’t Got” — Outtake
  2. “I’m So Ashamed” — Outtake
  3. “My Cricket & Me” — Solo Outtake
  4. “Both Ends Of the Candle” — Outtake
  5. “Slowdown Old World” — Alternate Version
  6. “Under The Double Eagle” — Outtake
  7. “So Much To Do” — Alternate Version
  8. “My Cricket & Me — Band Outtake*
  9. “Save Your Tears — Outtake*
  10. “A Song For You” — Alternate Version*
  11. “Whiskey River” — Alternate Version*
  12. “I Drank All Of Our Precious Love Away” — Outtake*

Disc 2

  1. Phases And Stages (Theme)
    “Washing The Dishes”
  2. Phases And Stages (Theme)
    “Walkin'”
  3. “Pretend I Never Happened”
  4. “Sister’s Coming Home”
    “Down At The Corner Beer Joint”
  5. “(How Will I Know) I’m Falling In Love Again”
  6. “Bloody Mary Morning”
  7. Phases And Stages (Theme)
    “No Love Around”
  8. “I Still Can’t Believe You’re Gone”
  9. “It’s Not Supposed To Be That Way”
  10. “Heaven And Hell”
  11. Phases And Stages (Theme)
    “Pick Up The Tempo”
    Phases And Stages (Theme)

Bonus Tracks

  1. Phases And Stages (Theme) — Alternate Version*
    “Washing The Dishes” — Alternate Version*
  2. “Sister’s Coming Home” — Alternate Version*
    “Down At The Corner Beer Joint” — Alternate Version*
  3. Phases And Stages (Theme) — Alternate Version*
    “(How Will I Know) I’m Falling In Love Again” — Alternate Version*
  4. “Bloody Mary Morning” — Alternate Version*
  5. “No Love Around” — Alternate Version*
  6. “I Still Can’t Believe You’re Gone” — Alternate Version*
  7. “It’s Not Supposed To Be That Way” — Alternate Version*
  8. “Heaven And Hell” — Alternate Version/Duet Vocal*
  9. Phases And Stages (Theme)
    “Pick Up The Tempo”
  10. Phases And Stages (Theme) — Alternate Version*

Disc 3

  1. “Whiskey River”
  2. “Me And Paul”
  3. Medley:
    “Funny How Time Slips Away”
    “Crazy”
    “Night Life”
  4. “Stay All Night (Stay A Little Longer)”
  5. “Walkin'”
  6. “Bloody Mary Morning/Take Me Back To Tulsa”
  7. “The Party’s Over”
  8. “Truck Drivin’ Man”
  9. “She Thinks I Still Care”
  10. “Good Hearted Woman”
  11. “Sister’s Comin’ Home”

Bonus Tracks

  1. “Shotgun Willie”*
  2. “You Look Like The Devil”*
  3. “Bloody Mary Morning” — Electric Guitar Version*
  4. Medley:*
    “Funny How Time Slips Away”
    “Crazy”
    “Night Life”
  5. “Willie’s After Hours” — Studio Track*

Grandaddy Auction

In the wake of freak-folk band Grandaddy’s demise frontman Jason Lytle put some of his “most prized possessions” up for the bidding (one started on May 26, the other starts today). These include trucker hats, as well as sunglasses, books from his library (including Liberace’s biography!), copies of Grandaddy’s latest album Just Like the Fambly Cat with one-of-a-kind hand-drawn cover art, posters, pins, and a needlepoint cat pillow with the inscription “Meow Meow Meow”. Most of this stuff is autographed.

Besides helping Grandaddy fans cope with the loss of the band, the auctions will benefit two charitable causes, the Emmett O’Loughlin Fund and the National Wildlife Federation.

JOHNNY CASH: AMERICAN V

Johnny Cash - American VDavid Kamp writes… Two years ago, I wrote an article for Vanity Fair about the fruitful and seemingly unlikely collaboration between Johnny Cash and the hard-rock and rap impresario Rick Rubin. The ostensible peg of the article, published in the October 2004 issue, was that the last product of the Cash-Rubin partnership, American V, was about to be released.

The article came out, but the album never did. Rubin later explained to me that his boutique label, American Recordings, was caught up in the personnel changes and ructions at Universal, American’s distribution partner, leading to a delay in new American releases. But now, with American partnered with Warner Bros. for distribution, American V will at last hit the shops. It comes out on July 4th.

A few weeks ago, Rubin kindly sent me an advance master of American V, which now carries the subtitle A Hundred Highways. I’ve been listening to it a lot. It’s magnificent, and, if anything, even more heartbreaking and death-stalked than the final Cash album released in Cash’s lifetime, American IV: The Man Comes Around, which gave us his shockingly frail version of Nine Inch Nails’s “Hurt.”

In the VF article (which I swear I’ll post soon, along with other music pieces I’ve written), I wrote about two raw, unembellished recordings that Rubin played for me, both made–like the rest of American V’s material–in the harrowing four-month period in 2003 between the death of Cash’s wife, June Carter, and his own death. The songs I mentioned, “Help Me” by Larry Gatlin and “The 309,” the last-ever Cash original, are tracks one and three of the new album. Rubin has gussied them up some for proper release, but they still sound ancient and splintery, more like outtakes from Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music than Johnny Cash records. The song between them, “God’s Gonna Cut You Down,” a traditional popularized by Odetta and done here in clomping chain-gang style, sounds even more Harry Smith-y, with Cash quavering near the top of his range* like John Jacob Niles or some faltering 1926 porch geezer.

The only thing about this album that gives me pause is its brevity–just twelve songs over forty-odd minutes. Rubin had told me he’d been toying with making American V a double, given the wealth of material he had at hand, and pointedly said he did not want to keep releasing posthumous albums, Tupac-style, because “there’s something that doesn’t feel good about the Tupac-ing.” I have to think that more of the 2003 recordings will somehow see the light of day, perhaps as bonus cuts to some deluxe American re-release down the line.

Silver Jews Add More Dates

The notoriously reclusive, almost exclusively studio band (plus front man David Berman), the Silver Jews, are extending their first-ever tour through the summer. 

06-23 Umbertide, Italy – Rockin Umbertide Festival
06-24 Milan, Italy – Berafestival
06-26 Barcelona, Spain – Pocket Club
06-27 Toulouse, France – Puerto Habana
06-29 Paris, France – Mo’Fo Fest
07-01 Roskilde, Denmark – Roskilde Festival
07-03 Malmo, Sweden – Folkets Park
07-05 Goteborg, Sweden – Accelerator Festival
07-06 Stockholm, Sweden – Accelerator Festival
07-07 Borlange, Sweden – Peace and Love Festivala
07-08 Kristiansand, Norway – TrashPop
07-10 Tel Aviv, Israel – The Mayumana House
07-11 Tel Aviv, Israel – The Patiphone
07-13 Manchester, England – Academy
07-14 Cardiff, Wales – The Point
07-15 London, England – Mean Fiddler
07-28 St. Louis, MO – Duck Room at Blueberry Hill
07-29 Chicago, IL – Pitchfork Music Festival *
08-19 Crickhowell, Wales – Green Man Festival
09-07 Seattle, WA – Showbox
09-10 San Francisco, CA – Mezzanine
09-12 Los Angeles, CA – Henry Fonda Theater 

* with The Walkmen, the Futureheads, Ted Leo/Pharmacists, Art Brut, Destroyer, Mountain Goats, Band of Horses, Man Man, Chin Up Chin Up, Hot Machines, A-Trak, Matthew Dear, Spank Rock, Ghislain Poirier, Tyondai Braxton, Chicago Underground Duo, Flosstradamus, 8 Bold Souls, more        

 

 

 

Zoysia – the new CD from The Bottle Rockets

Their eighth album and second release on Bloodshot Records, Zoysia is
the latest sample of The Bottle Rockets’ tenaciousness. Produced by Jeff
Powell (Afghan Whigs, 16 Horsepower) at the legendary Ardent Studios in
Memphis (Al Green, Big Star) and captured largely in two or three
takes, Zoysia represents the city where it was recorded; honeydew sweet with
it’s own unique groove.

With Zoysia, the Bottle Rockets nail the scruffy romantic, dirty
fingernail rock of the Midwest and soak up the soulful vibes that ooze from
the historic walls of Ardent Studios, all the while channeling some
serious cascading Crazy Horse squall. Lyrically, the band’s underdog
outlook finds the optimism on the other side of the screen door. Add it all
up and what you get is something that’s all its own, something that is
pure Bottle Rockets.

Full of ambition and a palpable sense of renewed determination, Zoysia
leaps from the speakers and takes you on that long, strange trip. Like
the hardy, creeping grass after which it’s named, Zoysia takes hold and
won’t let go–its roots run deep and wide, reminding you why you fell
in love with the band in the first place.

Bottle Rockets on the Road:

Friday, June 9th in ST LOUIS @ Blueberry Hill
Saturday, June 10th in CHICAGO @ Beat Kitchen

Co-Headlining Tour with BOBBY BARE JR!!!  A DOUBLE BILL TO ROCK YOUR
SUMMER (all except NYC and Allston—it’s just the Rockets on those two)

Sunday, June 11th in DETROIT @ Magic Stick
Monday, June 12 in TORONTO @ Lee’s
Tuesday, June 13th in CLEVELAND @ Beachland Ballroom
Wednesday, June 14th in PITTSBURGH @ Club Café
Thursday, June 15th in HOBOKEN @ Maxwell’s
Friday, June 16th in NEW YORK  @ Mercury Lounge
Saturday, June 17th in  ALLSTON @ Harper’s Ferry
Sunday, June 18th in SELLERSVILLE PA @ Sellersville Theater
Monday and Tuesday, June 19th and 20th in ARLINGTON VA @ Iota
Wednesday, June 21st in ASHEVILLE NC @ Grey Eagle
Thursday, June 22nd in ATLANTA @ Smith’s Olde Bar
Friday, June 23rd in LEXINGTON @ The Dame
Saturday, June 24th in BIRMINGHAM @ The Nick
Sunday, June 25th in NASHVILLE @ Exit/In

Check out our website for more dates, including their July West Coast
swing!!   
http://www.bloodshotrecords.com/tour/

My Morning Jacket teams with Boston Pops

Straight from touring with Pearl Jam. My Morning Jacket will finish off their Summer tour with two nights with the Boston Pops. On June 21 and 22, in between appearances at the Bonnaroo and High Sierra festivals, My Morning Jacket will take the stage at the Boston Symphony Hall backed by Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra.

Here’s the rest of MMJ’s summer stops:06-16 Manchester, TN – Bonnaroo Festival
06-21 Boston, MA – Boston Symphony Hall *
06-22 Boston, MA – Boston Symphony Hall *
06-30 Quincy, CA – High Sierra Festival

* with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra