Red Headed Stranger

Willie Nelson

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Red Headed Stranger Review

by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger perhaps is the strangest blockbuster country produced, a concept album about a preacher on the run after murdering his departed wife and her new lover, told entirely with brief song-poems and utterly minimal backing. It's defiantly anticommercial and it demands intense concentration -- all reasons why nobody thought it would be a hit, a story related in Chet Flippo's liner notes to the 2000 reissue. It was a phenomenal blockbuster, though, selling millions of copies, establishing Nelson as a superstar recording artist in its own right. For all its success, it still remains a prickly, difficult album, though, making the interspersed concept of Phases and Stages sound shiny in comparison. It's difficult because it's old-fashioned, sounding like a tale told around a cowboy campfire. Now, this all reads well on paper, and there's much to admire in Nelson's intimate gamble, but it's really elusive, as the themes get a little muddled and the tunes themselves are a bit bare. It's undoubtedly distinctive -- and it sounds more distinctive with each passing year -- but it's strictly an intellectual triumph and, after a pair of albums that were musically and intellectually sound, it's a bit of a letdown, no matter how successful it was.

Track Listing

	Title/Composer	Performer	Time	Stream
1	Time of the Preacher Willie Nelson	Willie Nelson	02:26	Spotify Amazon
2	I Couldn't Believe It Was True Eddy Arnold / Wally Fowler	Willie Nelson	01:32	Spotify Amazon
3	Time of the Preacher (Theme) Willie Nelson	Willie Nelson	01:13	Spotify Amazon
4	Medley: Blue Rock Montana/Red Headed Stranger Edith Lindeman / Willie Nelson / Carl Stutz	Willie Nelson	01:36	Spotify Amazon
5	Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain Fred Rose	Willie Nelson	02:21	Spotify Amazon
6	Red Headed Stranger Edith Lindeman / Carl Stutz	Willie Nelson	04:00	Spotify Amazon
7	Time of the Preacher (Theme) Willie Nelson	Willie Nelson	00:53	Spotify Amazon
8	Just as I Am William B. Bradbury / Charlotte Elliot	Willie Nelson	00:26	Spotify Amazon
9	Denver Willie Nelson	Willie Nelson	01:47	Spotify Amazon
10	O'er the Waves Willie Nelson / Juventino Rosas	Willie Nelson	00:47	Spotify Amazon
11	Down Yonder Louis Wolfe Gilbert	Willie Nelson	01:56	Spotify Amazon
12	Can I Sleep in Your Arms? Hank Cochran	Willie Nelson	05:24	Spotify Amazon
13	Remember Me (When the Candlelights Are Gleaming) Scotty Wiseman	Willie Nelson	02:52	Spotify Amazon
14	Hands on the Wheel Bill Callery	Willie Nelson	04:22	Spotify Amazon
15	Bandera Willie Nelson	Willie Nelson	02:19	Spotify Amazon
16	Bach Minuet in G Johann Sebastian Bach / Christian Pezold	Willie Nelson	00:40	Spotify Amazon
17	Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love With You) Hank Williams	Willie Nelson	03:32	Spotify Amazon
18	A Maiden's Prayer Tekla Badarzewska / Bob Wills	Willie Nelson	02:16	Spotify Amazon
19	Bonaparte's Retreat Pee Wee King / Redd Stewart	Willie Nelson	02:26	Spotify Amazon

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Red Headed Stranger Review

Track Listing

Willie Nelson Discography Browser