Legends of the Grand Ole Opry: Willie Nelson

Before Willie Nelson achieved chart-topping glory as the rough shod, indomitable Red Headed Stranger in the early ‘70s, he led a quiet but nonetheless illustrious existence as one of Nashville’s most gifted and distinctive songwriters. Throughout the late ‘50s and early ‘60s talents as varied as Patsy Cline, Ray Price and Faron Young made classic recordings from Willie Nelson’s carefully crafted tales of love, loss and loneliness while the man himself remained in the background. The recent release of Nelson’s haunting songwriting demos has brought his massive contribution to ‘60s country to the forefront, and now Legends of the Grand Ole Opry, presents us with a series of intimate live recordings that go even further in revealing Willie Nelson’s precocious songwriting talent. Where the Opry audience was often rowdy and carefree, Nelson, with the aid of little more than his careworn voice, stuns the audience into reverent silence, delivering a set of future classics that includes such compositions as “Funny How Time Slips Away,” “Darkness On the Face of the Earth,” and “Part Where I Cry.”