Willie Nelson Makes Me Happy

When I think of just sitting to listen to music as your primary focus, I think of how Dr. Huxtable used to sit and listen to jazz. Or how David Helfgott's father would do the same in Shine. I guess that means I associate the notion with old guys. And I still like to think of myself as not an old guy. That's debatable, however, due to my recent onset of back problems... but that's neither here nor there for this forum. New Vinyl! I came home today to a nice little vinyl-sized package, which I came to discover was the bearer of the two records I recently picked up from cduniverse.com (<--great prices for vinyl): Radical Face's Ghost, and Willie Nelson's Songbird. So instead of busying myself with stuff to do around the house while I checked out the new tunes, I decided to just sit and listen. This is actually really tough for me, since I'm so used to at least reading through my Google Reader feeds, but I did it. So since I have Ghost on mp3 already, I decided to check out Songbird first. Now, one of my goals for this blog is to not be a site for reviewing all of the new music that I check out, then pass on recommendations. It is, rather, a forum where I can blab about music and aspects of music that move me in some fashion. I can't say that the whole album did that, but it was definitely a pleasure to sit, stare, tap my foot, and soak in. My Review Just kidding. But if you weren't in the know, this is a Willie Nelson album--but just as much a Ryan Adams and The Cardinals album. Ryan Adams produced it and played guitars all over it, and The Cardinals do all kinds of great filling out the gaps. For the Ryan Adams fans out there, there's a number of tracks that are unmistakeably branded by his work. The Stuff That Makes Me Happy For me, the alt-country thing is really hit or miss--and more so on the miss side. But when it hits, I really really dig it. It's just that there's sooo much of it out there now that it all starts to sound the same. This song, however, is on the hit side--nothing really groundbreaking about it--it just has that right blend of the ol' good-music formula to do the trick. ...that's actually a Ryan Adams song. Cheaters. This next one--an old Grateful Dead tune--has some reaaally cool stuff going on in it. First, you get that nice baby-rocking slow shuffle-y ballad-y feel. Awesomely subtle overlaying dissonances. They play minors when you expect majors. Some really great dirty electric guitar bends. Great, easy resolving chorus. Electric, distorted tremolo guitar. Yummy major 7 chords. With Willie Nelson doing his Willie Nelson thing. On 180 gram vinyl, this sounds phenomenal:

1. They cover Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah"
2. They cover Gram Parson's "$1000 Wedding", which is phenomenal
3. They redo Willie's "Sad Songs and Waltzes"
4. They do an interesting rendition of "Amazing Grace"

Stuff About The Album That's Annoying:

1. "Songbird" is a Fleetwood Mac tune