Willie's new album, NAKED WILLIE ‘strips down’ his early stuff on RCA.

It's a 17-track collection of songs written and recorded by Nelson in Nashville, between 1966 to 1970. Naked Willie lays bare Willie’s original vision of those songs for the first time, with Willie’s vocals at the core, and bare bones ‘A-team’ guitars, piano, bass and drums mixed as they were originally heard in the studio.

The dozen or so original studio LPs that Willie recorded at that time were typical of the ‘Nashville Sound’: great songs – but more often than not, sweetened with lushly orchestrated arrangements and backing vocalists that could – and many times did – conflict with the actual mood or message or meaning of the composition itself. Willie and his longtime sidekick, harmonica player Mickey Raphael wondered what those RCA sides would sound like, if they could retrieve the original multi-track tapes and get back to their unmasked essence.

“At the time these original recordings were made,” writes former Rolling Stone editor Chet Flippo, now of CMT and a lifelong chronicler of country music, “Willie didn’t know that this kind of stripped-down personal sound was possible – on a released country record. Or that it was feasible. Nor did any other artist in Nashville, circa 1960-1970 or thereabouts.”

In many cases, the comparison of original tracks to the NAKED WILLIE versions is revelatory. As Flippo writes, “One of Nelson’s most important songs, ‘The Party’s Over,’ in its first incarnation is cloaked by heavy strings and a chorus. The song’s inherent sense of tragedy is masked. On ‘Following Me Around,’ Willie’s vocal on the original is literally chased around by a perky and persistent trumpet. Try listening through the huge background chorus and unwieldy arrangement that attempts to reduce ‘Laying My Burdens Down’ to a wacky musical comedy romp.”

By the end of the ’60s and beginning of the ’70s, artists of Willie’s caliber and temperament were beginning to stream into Nashville – coinciding with rock and folk’s “singer-songwriter” explosion at Top 40. Many of them held kinship to country music and were flooding into Nashville to record there. The studios had backed themselves into a corner, however, and were hard-pressed to change the system, which is still going strong today, albeit with some adjustments.

“Recording on Music Row meant assembly line recording,” Flippo notes. “Three three-hour sessions a day, maybe four, and out the door.” Nevertheless, Willie was in great company: “the A-Team all the way,” says Flippo: “Stellar pickers such as Grady Martin and Chip Young and Jerry Reed on guitar, Roy Huskey Jr. or Norbert Putnam on bass, Buddy Harman or Jerry Carrigan drumming, David Briggs or Pig Robbins on piano, Jimmy Day or Buddy Emmons on steel guitar.” NAKED WILLIE also serves as a tribute to their talents and versatility. Check it out.