346. Willie Nelson - Red Headed Stranger (1975)
















Track Listing

1. Time of the Preacher
2. I Couldn't Believe It Was True
3. Time of the Preacher (Theme)
4. Medley: Blue Rock Montana/Red Headed Stranger
5. Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain
6. Red Headed Stranger
7. Time of the Preacher (Theme)
8. Just as I Am
9. Denver
10. O'er the Waves
11. Down Yonder
12. Can I Sleep in Your Arms?
13. Remember Me (When the Candlelights Are Gleaming)
14. Hands on the Wheel
15. Bandera

Review

The great Willie Nelson, brings us an interesting country album here. Country music is stripped of complexity here into a new kind of purity, basically drums, acoustic guitar, harmonica and little else. It is also a concept album. Which is very interesting, but it does make it a hard album to sink in.

That is the main problem with the album, it doesn't sink in very fast and its pace is quite slow. This does not make it a bad album, but it makes it an album which is a bit more demanding than your average country thing.

In the end it is a good album, with some interesting ideas and a great deal of influence, but it isn't something that you will be singing all day or that you can immediately relate to. Still it is very much listening to. So if you are at all interested in Outlaw Country get it.

Tack Highlights

1. Red Headed Stranger
2. Time Of The Preacher
3. Denver
4. Bandera

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

A concept album, Red Headed Stranger is about a fugitive preacher, on the run from the law after killing his wife. Sparse and jumbled, with brief, poetic lyrics, no one involved in the creation of the album thought it would sell well. In spite of its inaccessibility, Red Headed Stranger was a blockbuster among both country music and mainstream audiences, going multiplatinum and making Nelson one of the biggest stars in country. In 2003, the same year the album was ranked #184 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, Nelson sang background vocals and added some guitar to a cover version of the album done by Carla Bozulich of the alt-country band, the Geraldine Fibbers. It was ranked #1 on CMT's 40 Greatest Albums in Country Music in 2006.

The first track, "Time of the Preacher", was memorably used in the 1985 television drama Edge of Darkness.

The lyrics to "Time of the Preacher" were used to help open the graphic Novel Preacher.

Blue Eyes Crying In Te Rain: