Your Essential Willie Nelson Songs

Bobby Lord was one of those rock-a-billy artists who had considerable regional success during the 1950s without cracking the National charts. Columbia issued 19 singles on Bobby Lord without ever issuing an LP. Some,such as “Hawkeye”, sold extremely well but over too extended a period for the charts to pick up (it sold well into six figures)

He was a talented singer, a great storyteller and an all-around good guy that I had the pleasure of meeting on two occasions

Paul – Good stuff, Paul. I always like hearing first hand accounts of people meeting artists, and unfortunately I hadn’t heard of Bobby Lord until now.

Jim – I wish that were the case, but Living Hard, Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Wagonmaster were in the running, too.

Favorite Willie Nelson songs:

1) “Darkness On The Face of the Earth” – never a single but a great song
2) “Undo The Right” Johnny Bush’s version is better but Willie’s is good , too
3) “Bloody Mary Morning” – we’ve all had one of these, nicht wahr?
4) “What A Way To Live” – again the Johnny Bush recording is better but Willie also gets to the essense of the song. These first four songs are what Willie writes better than anyone else – songs of depair
5) “Faded Love” – this Bob Wills classic recorded with Ray Price and Crystal Gayle is country harmony at its very finest
6) “Blue Eyes Crying In the Rain” – this one wasn’t written by Willie (it was written by Fred Rose and recorded in the 1940s by Hank Williams and by Roy Acuff but Willie certainly nailed it.

7) “Family Bible” – the hit was by Claude Gray but Willie’s own version of a song he wrote (and sold) captures the right blend of reverence and nostalgia

8) “Lily Dale” with Darrell McCall – another great ballad. Willie’s real forte as a vocalist is ballads, not the outlaw country nonsense

9) “On the Road Again” (1980) – okay – so he can do uptempo

10) “You Don’t Know Me” – a loving tribute to the music of old friend Cindy Walker

Obviously , one could make a list of 50 songs without much loss in quality from these – my #11 would be Willie’s recording of “Three Days” a hit for Faron Young but better sung by Willie – another great song of despair. My list was getting top heavy with these songs but I love them – yeah

I laugh at the comment about Carrie Underwood having no intensity in her performances and then a suggestion about her performing in a movie — does that not seem a little strange???

My personal favourite Willie song is “Always on My Mind.”

“Lukenbach Texas” but I love “Georgia”, specifically the Ray Charles version.

Brad Paisley is just about infallibie in my book.

Diana Degarmo is still listed as pop/r&b on myspace. I’m sorry, but I just don’t buy somebody becoming a country singer over night. She may also want to remove her profile picture on myspace if she’d like to be accepted. Some people need interview coaches. I don’t think she should have repeatedly mentioned how she never wanted to be in country music. Apparently hanging with Dee Snider and Bobby Brown makes you country? (Haha, come on – at least give that joke to me!) Only so many reality tv people will be accepted by country radio. That number is close to peaking if it hasn’t already.

I want to see people make it the old fashioned way. Everybody is going to get success at different speeds and different ways. But I’d like to see more than a tv spot or a couple auditions. A genuine interest, you know?