Willie Nelson - "Without A Song" (1983) - Columbia Records
Howdy Friends,
This is a VERY early 80's sounding record by Shotgun Willie.
Like 1978's remarkable Stardust and 1981's Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Without A Song is another foray into tin pan alley-style standards from the country crooner.
And while Willie, of course, sounds great on vocals and guitar, there's that certain tinniness to the rhythm section and organ parts that seemed to permeate a lot of recordings in this era. All of the non-Willie guitar solos have that certain soft rock smoothness to them that borders dangerously close to sounding like Muzak.
Things almost sound a little too polished.
Here at the tiki bar we mostly like our records stripped down and raw-sounding. Especially with our Country records where the star of the song should be the song itself and not the slick production style!
Or as Tiki T. is wont to say, "More thrills, less frills."
This is no clearer than on the very dated version of "As Time Goes By", a duet between Willie and Julio Iglesias, which probably would have sounded great at some ridiculously rich kids' Bar Mitzvah in the early 1980's.
The good news is that the title track is pretty amazing while "Once In A While", "Golden Earrings", "You'll Never Know", "To Each His Own" and the closing track, "A Dreamer's Holiday" are all really good.
Even mediocre Willie is still better than mostly everything else!
RATING: 4 never knows what makes the rain fall, never knows what makes the grass so tall out of 5
This is a VERY early 80's sounding record by Shotgun Willie.
Like 1978's remarkable Stardust and 1981's Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Without A Song is another foray into tin pan alley-style standards from the country crooner.
And while Willie, of course, sounds great on vocals and guitar, there's that certain tinniness to the rhythm section and organ parts that seemed to permeate a lot of recordings in this era. All of the non-Willie guitar solos have that certain soft rock smoothness to them that borders dangerously close to sounding like Muzak.
Things almost sound a little too polished.
Here at the tiki bar we mostly like our records stripped down and raw-sounding. Especially with our Country records where the star of the song should be the song itself and not the slick production style!
Or as Tiki T. is wont to say, "More thrills, less frills."
This is no clearer than on the very dated version of "As Time Goes By", a duet between Willie and Julio Iglesias, which probably would have sounded great at some ridiculously rich kids' Bar Mitzvah in the early 1980's.
The good news is that the title track is pretty amazing while "Once In A While", "Golden Earrings", "You'll Never Know", "To Each His Own" and the closing track, "A Dreamer's Holiday" are all really good.
Even mediocre Willie is still better than mostly everything else!
RATING: 4 never knows what makes the rain fall, never knows what makes the grass so tall out of 5
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