Red Headed Stranger (1975)

The story of Willie Nelson’s first album for the Columbia label is likely well-known by now. When he played the finished production for label heads, the story goes, they lost their minds. They assumed it was a demo and, when Nelson told them it was the album he wanted to release, they fought it but had no recourse. Nelson’s contract gave him full creative control. Lucky for them, as the album eventually went double-platinum or better, elevating Nelson’s status as a country artist and outlaw singer. The stripped-down production lets us focus on Nelson’s voice which has somehow always felt unusually pure. It also lets us get the strong bones of his songwriting more directly, with roots which run back to earliest country days of the American songbook. “Outlaw” has always struck me as the wrong word for Nelson and his work, even if he is a known consumer of marijuana. His voice is gentle and warm and his songs hit the same way, almost always instantly likable, simple and memorable. Of course, we’re also dealing with a concept album here, about a bitter man who slew his wife and her lover and has been on the run since. Like many concept albums I can’t always make out the narrative, but in this case I can feel it fine, a sad and dangerous man, wrecked, adrift. The album is short, under 35 minutes, with some calculated repetitions across the 15 tracks: “Time of the Preacher” makes three appearances, one of only 25 seconds, and “Red Headed Stranger” shows up twice. “Tale of the Red Headed Stranger,” written by Edith Lindeman Calisch and Carl Stutz, was originally recorded by Arthur Smith, more famous for “Guitar Boogie,” a popular candidate for first rock ‘n’ roll record ever. It’s also a handle Nelson likes to apply to himself. Red Headed Stranger also features standards by Fred Rose (“Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain”), Juventino Rosas (“O’er the Waves”), and others. The sing-song simplicity of the approach, picking out tunes on an acoustic guitar and serving up instrumentals as well, works well as cover for a real sense of complex poignancy. I’m not sure it’s the place to start with Willie Nelson, but certainly it’s essential across his amazing career. It goes down easy and it’s not hard to make a daily habit of it.