As an impressionable teenager, I had a jaundiced opinion of certain kinds of music. Growing up with a steady stream of new releases from The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, for example, made it easy to identify the music I did not need to hear. Back then people still called it Country & Western. As a ten year-old boy living in an unremarkable Adelaide suburb, I detested that crap. I liked watching ‘Kommotion’, despite it being a primitive early attempt at a TV Pop show, but when The Reg Lindsay Country Hour was on I would stand before the B&W screen thinking, “Why?”
Still, I remember liking Roger Miller’s songs when they came on the radio. They were more like Pop songs. But most Country tunes played on the radio were either (a) cheap novelty or (b) a miserable dirge. Country influences would filter through, but real Country music? Not even with yours.
When Willie Nelson first caught my attention, it was under similar circumstances, when he released his ‘Stardust’ album, back in ’79. I loved that record. In the era of Punk and New Wave, it was a bona-fide guilty pleasure. The great standards were fine, and I’d confidently proclaim “Stardust” one of the most perfect songs ever written, but I still held firm to my belief that I hated Country. BTW, Willie is about to release another album in that vein. It sounded great when we played it in the office yesterday. But that album’s another story.
The Willie Nelson disc that I’ve been relishing over the last week or so, is not full of Pop Standards, or even Country. This one is your actual Western. (Are you worried?)
Over the years, I’ve developed a deeper respect for Willie Nelson, and his music but it was more my love of Country Blues that got me into ‘Willie And The Wheel’. The first song on the disc is “Hesitation Blues” which I recognized from Jim Jackson’s Country Blues version from 1930. Its composition is often attributed to W.C. Handy, but “Hesitation Blues” has seen many versions over the years, with lyrics varying between styles. Jim Jackson’s version is a little more salacious than Willie’s, being sourced from the more tempered Western Swing version, released a few years after Jackson’s by Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies, the first Western Swing band to appear on record.
And there was more I connected with, a version of Frankie ‘Half Pint’ Jaxon’s famous Blues song, “Fan It”, The Mississippi Sheiks’ “Sittin’ On Top Of The World” and other titles that share a history with vintage Western Swing.
Driving the music on this album is the crack Americana outfit, Asleep At The Wheel. These guys been at it for so long, they can do this stuff in their sleep, and having played with Willie before doesn’t hurt either. This was a fun project for all concerned, and it shows. The Wheel’s accompanying vocals are as entertaining as the appearance of New Orleans horns.
If anything, the ride is all too short, with the album clocking in just shy of 40 minutes, but it’s better than having even one piece of filler to spoil the mix. The concept for this album had been a thirty-year long dream for legendary R&B record producer, Jerry Wexler, who selected the songs. This is some champagne Americana. And after all these years I have to concede that Country is more a state of mind. Go with what you believe.
