Album Reviews

In 1975, with complete artistic control written into his new Columbia Records contract, Willie Nelson entered Autumn Sound, a small Garland, Texas studio, to record a sparely arranged concept album based upon the semi-obscure song "The Red Haired Stranger," written by Carl Stutz, a Richmond, Virginia based radio announcer  and Edith Lindeman Calisch, the amusement critic for the Richmond Times-Dispatch newspaper. The pair was best known for writing "Little Things Mean A Lot," which was a hit single for the pop star Kitty Kallen back in 1954 and featured on the wildly popular TV show "Your Hit Parade." Stutz went on to become a high-school math teacher.  

The song is about a stranger who rides into a town one day on his "raging black stallion," still yearning for his late beloved who "lays asleep on the hillside." He's "bitter in his sorrow," and it's best not to mess with him. The advice is to "wait 'till tomorrow, And maybe he'll ride on again."

He's got a bay in tow belonging to his dead love that catches the attention of a "yellow haired lady," who befriends him in the bar. He buys her a few drinks and gives her some money. She follows him out and tries to grab the bay. "He shot her so quick they had no time to warn her."

Nelson constructed a prequel to the song and using country standards written by Eddie Arnold ("I Couldn't Believe It Was True"), Fred Rose ("Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain"), Hank Cochran and others,  along with originals,  built the story around a fugitive on the run for having killed his wife and her lover. It ends with Bill Callery's "Hands on the Wheel," which suggests that in his old age, the stranger has been redeemed "Now my hand's on the wheel of something that's real And I feel like I'm goin' home."

Nothing like this had ever been tried in the country genre, and despite Columbia's trepidation, the album went to number one on the country charts and eventually went gold and double platinum. 

If the album was a sculpture, it would be one of those horsey things you'd expect to see on the desks of George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. It's pure Americana.

The spare arrangements for guitars, mandolin, piano, harmonica, bass  and drums leave plenty of room for Willie's voice, which appropriately dominates. 

There a musical interludes that move the story along and in a pre-VCR era, this was an album you could put on and create a wide-screen Cinemascopic, Technicolor movie in your head as the songs took you through the carefully plotted narrative.

The sonics are superb, with a spaciously laid out, cleanly and naturally rendered instrumental bed, in front of which Nelson's voice floats. If you love Willie's voice, and who doesn't, this is an opportunity to get as close to it as you'll find on record. It's even better recorded than on Stardust and while that album of standards is great, this one captures more of the pure essence that is Willie Nelson.

The IMPEX reissue mastered by George Marino at Sterling Sound is deluxe in every way: the record is 180g pressed at RTI, the artwork is carefully scanned and reproduced, including the original's lyric insert, and the paper over cardboard jacket is what you should expect for a premium priced reissue. There's an earlier Columbia/Legacy vinyl edition still out there for half the price: it sounds half as good.

Great late night listening and easy to recommend for both music and sound.