Willie Nelson “To Lefty from Willie”
/Willie Nelson’s tribute to Lefty Frizzell, recorded the year he died, and released a couple of years later in 1977. They were close to the same age, actually, but LF died way too young. Hopefully WN will live forever. Seeing how I love Willie Nelson, and I love Lefty Frizzell, this record should be a home run, but unfortunately, for me, it’s underwhelming, a base on balls, so to speak. I can’t really put my finger on why, which bugs me a little (not as much as it might bug a fan of this record, reading this!). I guess this is when I’m glad I’m not a music critic, because I just can’t figure it out. Those folks (music critics) aren’t paid enough—wait, they’re not paid at all, anymore. Anyway, it doesn’t help that the album cover looks like a wedding invitation—the kind I dread seeing arrive in the mail. Anyway, I do like this record, I’m just sad to say I can’t “marry it.” It does remind me that I have a Lefty Frizzell cassette somewhere, which I was really into at one point, but I’m not set up to listen to cassettes at this time, and that makes me a little sad, too. I only have a few Willie Nelson records, but I’ve always admired him in every way and think his voice is worth a giant monument carved out of a mountain or something. I have to admit that part of my less than excitement is that I’m not in love with the recording, here, as top-rate, of course, as the players are. I hate to keep harping on my dislike of harmonica, but there you go—even though it’s played, here, by harmonica legend Mickey Raphael—for me it’s like all dessert and not enough main course. It’s like my intolerance of wheat gluten—if you had, say, Joël Robuchon prepare me a meal, ten percent of which was wheat flour, I’m still going to be driving the big white bus.
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