Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are with guest Jesse Walker. Jesse is books editor at Reason and author of two books, The United States of Paranoia and Rebels On the Air. He can be found on Twitter at @notjessewalker.
Jesse’s Music Pick: Willie Nelson
In Part Two, we pick up Willie’s story at his commercial breakthrough, Red Headed Stranger (1975). This opens a window in which Willie records frequent number one albums on the country charts and often dents the pop charts with his records, as well.
What’s changed? Well, Willie stops writing music for himself for an awfully long stretch. It’s somewhat ironic that his biggest successes in this era will come from other people’s songs after Willie’s writing helped so many artists move product in the years prior.
Near the height of “Outlaw Country,” Willie takes a sharp left turn by recording an album’s worth of compositions from the Great American Songbook. Stardust becomes a huge hit and allows Willie to do what he wants. Specifically, that means a series of tribute albums and duet albums in the late '70s.
The '80s would bring a string of crossover hits like "On the Road Again," "To All the Girls I Loved Before," "Pancho and Lefty," and "Seven Spanish Angels.” Always on My Mind was a HUGELY popular album at the time but signaled the end of a certain creative era for Willie. He writes again on Tougher Than Leather to mixed returns and the rest of the decade would see occasional hits among a plethora of releases.
The 1990s kick off with Willie’s tax trouble and a pretty great release meant to raise money to pay back the government. We dive into Who’ll Buy My Memories and other highlights from an interesting decade of music, with Across the Borderline, Moonlight Becomes You, Spirit, and Teatro (with Daniel Lanois producing) among his best work.
Willie has continued his firehose release schedule to this day, with a new album on the shelves just a couple months ago. We skim through the latter portion of his career, stopping to shine a light on a few of the more worthwhile albums.
Over two parts and more than six hours, we hope to give both die-hard Willie fans and those new to the artist an overview of what made him so great.
Episode 35: Jon Gabriel / New Order
Episode 34: Mark Joseph Stern / The Velvet Underground
Episode 33: Kevin Madden / Wilco
Episode 32: Ellen Carmichael / Dire Straits
Episode 31: Christian Schneider / Pixies
Episode 30: Matt Murray / Talking Heads
Episode 29: Terry Teachout / The Band
Episode 28: Mark Davis / Paul McCartney and Wings
Episode 27: The Cover Version Special
Episode 26: Jay Caruso / Foo Fighters
Episode 25: Ezekiel Kweku / Talk Talk
Episode 24: Eric Garcia / AC/DC
Episode 23: John J. Miller / The Police
Episode 22: Eli Lake / Steely Dan
Episode 21: Bruce Walker / The Monkees
Episode 20: Guy Benson / Billy Joel
Episode 19: Karol Markowicz / Pulp
Episode 18: Julie Roginsky / Led Zeppelin
Episode 17: Stephen Miller / Oasis
Episode 16: Josh Jordan / Pearl Jam
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