Willie Nelson Album: “Revolutions of Time: The Journey 1975-1993”

Don't be fooled--this is not a career-spanning retrospective. There is nothing here from his RCA years when he made a name for himself as one of the most prolific songwriters in Nashville throughout the sixties. Instead this box set covers the Columbia years which includes both his critical and commercial peaks.

This 3-CD set starts with Willie Nelson's 1975 release Red Headed Stranger (a concept album that owes as much to the Who's Tommy as it does to C&W) and the single "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain," which was both a country and pop hit.

For the next quarter century, Nelson would wear the mantle of country "outlaw," but the tag didn't always fit. In 1978 he'd release Stardust, a collection of standards, including "Georgia on My Mind" and Blue Skies."

Disc-2 features 20 duets with everyone from Ray Price and Webb Pierce to Neil Young and Bob Dylan. Disc-3 covers the most recent decade of the collection (1983-93).

This past summer I saw Willie Nelson in concert at the state fair. It was terrific. This icon of American music is an excellent songwriter, an emotionally charged singer, and his gut-string guitar leads are amazing. Like many of my CD purchases, this box set allows me to get 60 songs at a reasonable price without having to replace all my vinyl LPs and cassettes. RECOMMENDED

As a die hard Willie Nelson fan, I own about 20 of this great artist's albums. Revolutions of Time is an excellent--dare I say the best--compilation of Willie's remarkable songwriting and performing achievements that span over four decades. Attempting to summarize Willie's remarkable career is a difficult, albeit impossible, task. Revolutions of Time does by far the best job of achieving this goal that I have ever seen.

This is an excellent, comprehensive collection of probably the best music Willie has recorded in his long career--a good starter kit for those new to his music. The fat book included is a nice bonus. I've kept these three CDs in my stereo since I bought the box set months ago.

This boxed set (which opens like a hardback book, with the CD's on the inside front and back covers) clearly demonstrates that Willie could sing many different types of song. Nevertheless, most of them fall into two main categories - the country songs and the classic oldies from the Great American Songbook.

The songs from the Great American Songbook were originally released on his albums Stardust, Somewhere over the rainbow, Without a song, What a wonderful world and an album he did with Leon Russell (One for the road) - five albums that Willie recorded which were devoted entirely to these songs. The songs chosen for this collection include Blue skies, Georgia on my mind, Summertime, Mona Lisa, Harbor lights, Without a song and Ole buttermilk sky. Most (if not all) of the original albums from which these tracks are taken are still available. There is also a double-CD, All the songs I've loved before, which is dominated by these songs, only including a few country songs.

On this collection, there are plenty of country songs, including Willie's covers of Blue eyes crying in the rain, If you've got the money I've got the time and City of New Orleans. The middle of the three CD's is devoted to his duets with many different singers. You could fill several CD's with Willie's duets without including any guest twice, but the ones chosen for this selection offer an excellent representation of this aspect of his career.

Some people say that a collection like this does not Willie Nelson justice, because so many of his albums were themed. My answer to that is that this provides a great sampling of his career. After playing this a few times, you can decide which aspect of his music you like best and explore that in greater depth.

I found this set of cds by accident when I was looking for a particular song on the album that Willie does with Dolly Parton. I was thrilled to check out the songs and find out just how good this set was. I am a die hard country fan and this is one of my favorties!!