Red Headed Stranger [B&N Exclusive]

by Willie Nelson

Overview

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. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Product Details

Release Date:	07/10/2020
Label:	Barnes Noble Consign
UPC:	0194397538519
Rank:	8648

Tracks

1. Time of the Preacher
2. I Couldn't Believe It Was True
3. Time of the Preacher Theme
4. Medley: Blue Rock Montana/Red Headed Stranger
5. Blue Eyes Crying In the Rain
6. Red Headed Stranger
7. Time of the Preacher Theme
8. Just as I Am
9. Denver
10. O'er the Waves
11. Down Yonder
12. Can I Sleep in Your Arms
13. Remember Me (When the Candle Lights Are Gleaming)
14. Hands on the Wheel
15. Bandera

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Willie Nelson   Primary Artist,Guitar,Vocals,Lead Vocals
Bobbie Nelson   Piano
Paul English   Drums
Mickey Raphael   Harmonica
Billy Gene English   Drums
Jody Payne   Guitar,Mandolin
Bee Spears   Bass
Bucky Meadows   Guitar

Technical Credits

Bob Wills   Composer
Johann Sebastian Bach   Composer
Boo Macleod   Assistant Engineer
Bill Callery   Composer
Louis Wolfe Gilbert   Composer
Fred Rose   Composer
Eric Paul   Mixing,Engineer
John Jackson   Product Manager
Wally Fowler   Composer
Pee Wee King   Composer
Joseph M. Palmaccio   Mastering
Phil York   Engineer
Scotty Wiseman   Composer
Nick Shaffran   Series Consultant
Redd Stewart   Composer
Christian Pezold   Composer
Hank Williams   Composer
Willie Nelson   Arranger,Composer,Producer,Original Recording Producer
Al Quaglieri   Reissue Producer
Eddy Arnold   Composer
Hank Cochran   Composer
Chet Flippo   Liner Notes
Howard Fritzson   Art Direction
William B. Bradbury   Composer
Tekla Badarzewska   Composer
Juventino Rosas   Composer
Edith Lindeman   Composer
Carl Stutz   Composer
David Gahr   Photography
Randall Martin   Design
Monica White   Design,Artwork,Cover Art,Cover Design
Charlotte Elliot   Composer
Don Hunstein   Photography