Customer Reviews

One Hell Of A Ride

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Let me start by saying that I'm a big Willie Nelson fan, and I hate docking this collection a star. It's not because the material on this set isn't first-rate. On the contrary; everything here is classic. Even some of the lesser-known and/or second-tier songs would be career highlights for most artists. But the problem with this set is the same problem suffered by every Willie Nelson compilation released so far: what's missing from it.

There are several good Willie Nelson compilations on the market right now: the classic (and recently remastered) "Greatest Hits (and Some That Will Be)," the boxed set "Revolutions of Time," and two compilations both called "Essential Willie Nelson" (one a single-disc covering his early years and the other a recent double-disc covering his entire career). While all of these collections are great, none is truly comprehensive. I was really hoping that this would finally be the collection that "got it right," but once again, we're given a Willie Nelson compilation that is frustratingly incomplete.

Scanning the titles on this box, I noticed that some of my favorites were missing. So, I went back to the four previously-mentioned collections, all of which I own, and I made a list of the songs that were included on one or more of those collections but are missing here. Some omissions were major, some minor; but it was surprising just how many true classics were M.I.A. Need proof? Take a quick look at the list below, and see how many of your favorite Willie Nelson songs are on it:

Last Thing I Needed First Thing This Morning
All of Me
Blue Skies
Faded Love (w/ Ray Price)
Forgiving You Was Easy
I Never Cared For You
Railroad Lady
Heartaches of a Fool
Look What Thoughts Can Do
Remember Me (When the Candle Lights Are Gleaming)
Midnight Rider
December Day
Healing Hands of Time
Darkness on the Face of the Earth
My Own Peculiar Way
Waltz Across Texas
Some Other World
Phases & Stages (Circles, Cycles and Scenes)
Time of the Preacher
It's Not Supposed to Be That Way
Summertime
Everything Is Beautiful (In It's Own Way)
Take It To the Limit
How Do You Feel About Foolin' Around?
I'm Movin' On
Slow Movin' Outlaw
Are There Any More Real Cowboys?
They All Went to Mexico
Texas On a Saturday Night
Heartland
Nobody Slides, My Friend
Little Old Fashioned Karma
Harbor Lights
Without a Song
Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues
Who'll Buy My Memories?
When I Dream
There Is No Easy Way (But There's a Way)
Ole Buttermilk Sky
A Horse Called Music
Nothing I Can Do About It Now
Is the Better Part Over?
Ain't Necessarily So

Kind of shocking. If you're a Willie Nelson fan, you probably found a good disc's worth of must-have classics, and that's my point. Why didn't they make this set a five-disc box and include all of the classics in his catalog? Then, anyone looking for a primer to Willie's career would have the entire canon available for a single purchase.

Now, don't get me wrong. This is a great collection on its own merits, and it is still probably the best place to start for any newcomer. It's also a good compilation, even if you have all of the previously mentioned sets, because it does a great job of finding classic rarities and lesser-known gems. It also does an excellent job of summing up the later part of Willie's career, which has been, honestly, pretty uneven. But as a complete career overview, it's still disappointing.

If you don't own anything by Willie Nelson, I would advise you to buy this set first, but just realize that there's still a lot of great material out there. In addition to the previous song list, there are several albums that are classics in and of themselves ("Yesterday's Wine," "Shotgun Willie," "Phases & Stages," "Red Headed Stranger," "Stardust," and latter-day cult classic "Spirit" being possibly the most essential ones). Maybe one day somebody will get it right. And who knows? If Willie Nelson has a late-career renaissance like Bob Dylan, maybe by then it will need a sixth disc. For right now, though, this will have to do.

To be sure, there's no shortage of Willie Nelson best-ofs out there, but this far-flung 4-CD set is a real doozy. It draws on Willie's work from a number of labels, including former rivals RCA and Columbia (now both part of Sony-BMG) as well as early '60s recordings on Liberty (owned by EMI), a couple of tracks from his lone mid-period album for Atlantic and various offerings on Universal over the last ten years.

It's a fitting tribute to Nelson, a prolific trendsetter and stubborn iconoclast whose seventy-fifth birthday coincides with the album's release. The collection starts out with a prehistoric demo that Willie made around 1954 or '55, back before his early success as the songwriter of hits such as "Crazy" and "Nite Life..." Even back then, working in the real hillbilly days when Nashville was only beginning to consolidate its power as the center of a new country music industry, Willie had an odd, exceptional air about him. His phrasing was already a little bit weird and his sense of rhythm was kinda cock-eyed. This collection moves from early hillbilly gems such as "No Place For Me" (an indie single that Willie self-released back in 1957), into his early work for RCA, a period that yields several off-the-radar gems, even though Nelson found the Nashville studio system creatively frustrating...

The playlists of this four CD set are not organized in strictly chronological order -- there's a much-welcomed, intelligently thought-out aesthetic at play, which can pair a song from one era with another that compliments it in interesting ways. The big hits are there (although not all of them) but they are sandwiched between less well-known material that more fully illuminates Nelson's creative trajectories. After the "outlaw" era, Discs Three and Four take us into Willie's years of superstardom, and his long run of reinterpreting old standards and teaming up with old pals and heroes, first on a series of duet albums, and then on the Highwaymen records. It's all dutifully sampled, although nothing touches the transcendent beauty of "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain," which is one of the most brilliant works of country revivalism, and possibly Nelson's finest moment as a song stylist: even with all the other great songs included here, that's the one song that I find myself playing over and over again, even after all these years.

The packaging is pretty cool, too -- it's eco-friendly, with soft cardboard slipcases instead of plastic trays, so it may feel a little unusual at first... But the real treat is the glossy booklet, which has a wealth of super-groovy photographs taken at all stages of Nelson's career, as well as pictures of all of his LPs ever released, which is also pretty neat.

Happy Birthday, Willie!! Thanks for all the great gifts! (DJ Joe Sixpack, Slipcue Music Reviews)

Come on stop nit pickin'. Seems like everyone has his or her favorite song that's not included on this collection. The problem is Willie has been so prolific for the past twenty five years, that it would be impossible to satisfy everyone even if they had made this a five or six disc collection. All I know is this is a great collection and I'm delighted to find one hundred of Willie's greatest songs all in one collection.

With that said I would like to see a few of Willie's great albums like "Angel Eyes", "Without A Song", "Islands In The Sea" and the "Songwriter" soundtrack (with Kris Kristofferson) reissued. Or maybe Atlantic Records would have the good sense to reissue their terrific three disc collection "Classic & Unreleased". Then again I guess that's a bit of nit pickin' on my part.

Willie Nelson-One Hell Of A Ride (4-cd Box Set) *****

To celebrate Willie Nelson's up coming birthday of however many years it has been, I think it is 75 but I could be wrong, but anyway to celebrate this a boxed set of all that is Willie Nelson is being released called One Hell Of A Ride, and it is 'one hell of a ride.' This is a must have for any Willie fan, I mean it has essentially anything you could ever want, with the exception of maybe a few hidden personal treasures.

This career spanning set has rare cover songs, original material, rare tracks, and much more. This covers Willie from the beginning and well might I add. Whether your new to Willie's music or a life long fan of Mr. Nelson, this box set is a great addition to any music collection.

Agree with the other reviewer that a 5 (or 6) disc set would have covered Willie completely - up to and including previously unreleased songs but this is superb set - with great acoustics and multiple label sources. For the newcomer, it really provides ample reasons as to why Willie Nelson is a American legend.
Only beef is biodegradable packaging - why would anyone want the packaging for their CDs to be biodegradable?

An incredibly listenable overview of Willies entire catalogue. The rarities and generous song selection make this even more satisfying a listen than the Essential collection from a few years ago.

Willie Nelson's 4-CD Box Set "One Hell of a Ride" is a great compilation of music and the accompanying booklet is well worth the read. The packaging is a problem. The cardboard slipcase and cardboard sleeves for storing the CDs just don't work. Thier non-standard size makes storing this CD collection problematic and I'm not sure the cardboard CD sleeves will stand-up over time. Given the quality of the collection, I question why a standard 4-CD Crystal case was not used. Although the accompanying booklet was a great read, I purchased the collection for the music and would prefer the CDs dictate the packaging, not the accompanying booklet.

Best Willie Nelson there is. Best studio recording quality. A 4 CD box set.

I was quite impressed at the beautiful packaging of this set - wonderful photograph of Willie on the cover. It's a wonderful collector's item for diehard Willie fans. I highly recommend it.

How do you select the best from hundreds & hundreds of recordings? One Hell of a Ride is a pretty good attempt. It has most of my favorites, some I've never heard before and some I haven't heard in years.
My choice 100 songs may have been different, but this is a great box set.