Description
Firstly, let’s take a moment to be extremely and wildly impressed by the fact that this is pig-tailed prince of country Willie Nelson’s 70th album.
What’s even more inspiring is the fact that Nelson – who was born during the Great Depression – is now 87 years old, meaning that nobody would really mind if he put the brakes on and spent his dotage doing what he loves best: kicking back and smoking a bunch of weed. But no, Willie is a worker – which kind of goes against everyone who ever told you that sitting around getting high all day robs you of your drive.
Just a year on from the release of his Grammy-winning ‘Ride Me Back Home’ comes the super-smooth ‘First Rose of Spring’. In classic country tradition, it’s a collection of covers with a couple of freshly penned Nelson originals thrown in for good measure. ‘Blue Star’ and ‘Love Just Laughed’ are the new additions: the first a dreamy ballad peppered with some boogie-woogie piano and Spanish guitar, the second a somewhat more ballsy but still beautiful offering in that gentle, tender way Nelson’s been excelling at ever since the devastating country and western standard ‘Crazy’ – as made famous by Patsy Cline – fell from his masterful pen in 1961.
