Review – Willie Nelson’s “Let’s Face The Music & Dance”
The great thing about being Willie Nelson is that you can do whatever the hell you want. The other great thing is that you can do whatever the hell you want, and people will probably like it. Not because they’re gullible, or even because people tend to afford someone like Willie Nelson more latitude. It’s because you’re Willie Nelson, and the very sound of your voice, or the instantly-recognizable, earthy tone of your guitar “Trigger” is enough to send the listener to a warm place, or to make the hairs on the back of their neck stand attention. Willie Nelson doesn’t just make great music, he is the man that defines the gradient that all great music is judged by.
But Willie Nelson doesn’t continue to make great albums because of this truth, he continues to make great albums in spite of it. Let’s face it, there have been moments in Willie’s career when he hasn’t been making the best albums, but right here, right now, with his last album Heroes, and now with Face The Music & Dance, I venture to say these would be considered great albums by any artist during any era.
Let’s Face The Music & Dance is an album of classic standards, performed with Willie’s “Family Band” that now principally includes sister Bobbie on piano, and Mickey Raphael on harp. It is not a country album in the traditional sense of the term. But the music hearkens back so far, and this entire album is so awash in those well-recognizable Willie tones, it still has plenty of country feel to it.
Really this is an old-time jazz album if it is anything. With very sparse arrangements and the antiquity of compositions that lean toward the minor key, Let’s Face The Music feels like a collection of songs unearthed out of a tome from some previous, undiscovered Willie life as a 40’s-era jazz guitarist and singer. Willie’s Django Reinhardt influences –the man he says specifically inspired his guitar tone–are in full bloom on Let’s Face The Music & Dance.
Willie may be 80-years-old, but it’s not yet time to start using terms like “surprisingly lucid” to describe his playing and singing. Hell, Let’s Face The Music might be one of the best collections of songs highlighting Willie’s fluttering, Latin-style guitar work out there, while his voice remains strong as ever in all registers.
The real gift of Let’s Face The Music is that Willie is so familiar with many of these compositions and has been playing them for so long, his performances comes across so clean and effortless, yet they still seem fresh and inspired for this particular recording. Just like Willie’s opus Red Headed Stranger, the music on Let’s Face The Music gets out of the way of the most important elements of the songs: Willie’s voice, his guitar, and the message of the songs. Bobbie and Mickey still get their moments though to take the lead in certain compositions, and just like with Willie, their style has become so engrained into the American music ethos, it is simply delightful to hear them play anything.
Where Willie’s Heroes showed surprising freshness and relevancy, Let’s Face The Music And Dance shows just how powerful Willie’s voice and guitar have become, and how served nearly naked, they can still more than carry an album, they can make it something special.
1 3/4 of 2 guns up.
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April 30, 2013 @ 9:57 am
I’ve been looking at this one on emusic and can’t make up my mind but I don’t think you can go wrong with Willie.
April 30, 2013 @ 1:12 pm
It’s surprising that you find “Heroes” to be a great album given that one of its most popular tracks features Snoop Dog. Granted, I havent heard the song but don’t you frequently (and wisely) make a point of how terrible Country Rap is? I know that it is only one song, but one assumes that it is probably mediocre at best and make a great album mediocre tracks do not, regardless of how good the rest is.
April 30, 2013 @ 1:53 pm
Snoop Dog sings (i.e., does not rap) one verse and does it modestly and reasonably competently.
April 30, 2013 @ 3:54 pm
As Jack says, Snoop really sings the song rather than rapping it, and I actually think approached the song with respect; something most country rappers don’t do. I don’t particularly like the song for many reasons. I think it’s schticky, but I understand why Willie cut it. It’s just one song on the album. This is what I said about it in the review:
https://savingcountrymusic.com/album-review-willie-nelsons-heroes
“Popular media has been portraying Heroes as Willie”™s pot opus. He initially wanted to call the album “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die” for the album”™s second track featuring Snoop Dogg among other guests. I”™ve said my peace about how I hope Willie Nelson”™s legacy is remembered for more than marijuana (https://savingcountrymusic.com/lets-remember-willie-nelson-for-more-than-marijuana), but as a song, the “Roll Me Up” title track runner-up is a really fun, witty vintage Willie song. But let”™s not bury the lead here about the best thing Heroes has to offer, which is a full scale collaboration between Willie and his singularly-talented son Lukas Nelson, who appears so much on this album, he really should get his name in small type somewhere on the front cover.”
May 1, 2013 @ 9:00 am
Yeah, that is definitely the best collaboration between a rapper and a country singer I’ve heard. It’s really more of a blues song than anything else, and it’s actually done pretty tastefully. Snoop doesn’t say anything about trucks and dirt roads, so that helps.
May 1, 2013 @ 9:08 am
“Roll Me Up” title track runner-up is a really fun, witty vintage Willie song…
I couldn’t agree more. Clearly, blazing has not affected Willie’s chops. The alcohol/pharma industries have done a great job of demonizing marijuana. It amazes me how uptight some people are about it when liquor/pills have snuffed out so many lives. I smile whenever I hear “Roll Me Up”.
April 30, 2013 @ 2:42 pm
I’ve really been enjoying this one. To my mind, it’s really similar to “Spirit”, albeit a little more upbeat, but it still has that sparse, intimate sound.
April 30, 2013 @ 3:03 pm
I’m sure I’ll love this. I’d still like him to a full album of originals. Too good of a songwriter to keep playing other musicians songs.
April 30, 2013 @ 3:57 pm
I understand what you’re saying Wayfast, but Willie has always been one to sing other’s songs, even though he’s known so well as being a songwriter himself. He only wrote 1/3 of “Red Headed Stranger” for example. To be honest, I wish more independent country music musicians would sing more of other people’s compositions. I think it generally makes for better albums. As long as there’s enough original expression from the artist on an album, I don;t see a problem with covers. In the case of this album, that was pretty much the concept of it, to make a cover album.
May 1, 2013 @ 3:19 am
It’s not necessarily the Willie Nelson I want to hear but it still get a thumbs up from me thanks to the voice and ‘earthy tones’ of Trigger that you mention.
Still looking forward to Vol 2 of the excellent “Remember Me” that was promised a couple of years ago …..