Yesterday's Wine Willie Nelson

• 1 Medley 03:39
• 2 In God's Eyes 02:21
• 3 Family Bible 03:09
• 4 It's Not for Me to Understand 03:03
• 5 Medley 03:14
• 6 Summer of Roses 02:05
• 7 December Day 02:17
• 8 Yesterday's Wine 03:12
• 9 Me and Paul 03:45
• 10 Goin' Home 03:06
• Total Runtime 29:51

Info for Yesterday's Wine

Originally released in 1971, „Yesterday's Wine“ was Willie Nelson's final album at RCA Records, for whom he recorded between 1965 and 1971. The album also marked Willie's farewell from Nashville--after a frustrating decade in Music City, Nelson packed up and moved back to Texas before „Yesterday's Wine“ was released. Adding to its historical significance, „Yesterday's Wine“ is also the first Willie Nelson 'concept' album and thus paved the way for „Phases And Stages“, „Red Headed Stranger“, and other Nelson classics.

„Yesterday's Wine“ tells the story of a man watching his own funeral and reflecting on his life. The album includes a number of Nelson standards, among them the title track, 'Family Bible,' 'December Day,' and a perfect kiss-off to Nashville, 'Me and Paul.' The all-star studio band includes 'Pig' Robbins on piano, Charlie McCoy on harmonica and Roy Huskey Jr. on bass, but because Nelson wrote most of the material the weekend prior to recording, both the playing and arrangements are muted. A great album that foreshadows the path Nelson would follow to superstardom.

„Though mid-'70s albums like Shotgun Willie and Red Headed Stranger are often held up as the finest examples of Willie Nelson's album craft (showcasing the country legend exploring his chosen theme over the course of records that played like unified song suites), Yesterday's Wine, their 1971 predecessor, should also take its rightful place among his best-loved works. A series of meditations on God, love, and aging, these songs are fragmented reflections on the life of Nelson's 'imperfect man' as he approaches death. Though the story isn't as tightly constructed as that of Red Headed Stranger, this fact lends Yesterday's Wine a feeling of malleability that adds to its power. At the album's heart are 'Summer of Roses,' 'December Day,' and the title track -- songs that detail a sense of longing and loss with the changing seasons mirroring the narrator's own life. Throughout, the outlaw subtext Nelson would become associated with a few years later is replaced by an underlying religious faith. While there may not be any songs here of the same caliber as 'Whiskey River' (Shotgun Willie) or 'Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain' (Red Headed Stranger), many of the numbers stand on their own, outside the album context. 'Family Bible,' 'Me and Paul,' and the title track are all particularly fine examples of Nelson's songcraft. As a whole, Yesterday's Wine provides further insight into the development of his art during this prolific period.“ (Nathan Bush, AMG)

Willie Nelson, vocals, guitar
Herman Wade, guitar
Chip Young, guitar
Dave Zettner, guitar
Jerry Stembridge, guitar
Dave Kirby, guitar
Weldon Myrick, steel guitar
Hargus 'Pig' Robbins, organ, piano
Jerry Lee Smith, piano
Jerry Smith, piano
Buddy Spicher, fiddle
Norman Spicher, fiddle
Bobby Thompson, banjo
Charlie McCoy, harmonica
Roy M. 'Junior' Huskey, bass
William Paul Ackerman, drums
Jerry Carrigan, drums

Recorded May 1971 at RCA's 'Nashville Sound' Studio, Nashville, Tennessee
Engineered by Al Pachucki
Produced by Felton Jarvis

Digitally remastered

Please Note: We offer this album in its native sampling rate of 44.1 kHz, 24-bit. The provided 96 kHz version was up-sampled and offers no audible value!

Willie Nelson
With a six-decade career and a catalog of more than 200 albums to his credit, the iconic Texas singer-songwriter Willie Nelsonhas earned a permanent position in pop music’s pantheon with songs combining the sophistication of Tin Pan Alley with the rough-and-tumble grit and emotional honesty of country music. He brought pop and country together on the radio in the early 1960s with unforgettable songs like “Crazy” (Patsy Cline), “Hello Walls” (Faron Young), “Funny How Time Slips Away” (Billy Walker), “Night Life” (Ray Price) and others and, by the mid-1970s, had become a superstar in his own right as a prime mover of a revolutionary and thriving outlaw country music scene. The Red Headed Stranger, Willie’s first album for Columbia Records in 1975, catapulted the artist to the front ranks of popularity, making his a name familiar in country and city households across America and around-the-world.

A seven-time Grammy Award winner, Willie Nelson has received numerous accolades including American Music Awards, Academy of Country Music Awards, Country Music Association Awards and others. He is a co-founder of Farm Aid, an annual series of fundraising events which began as an all-star benefit concert in 1985 to raise money for American family farmers. He continues to lobby against horse slaughter and produces his own blend of biodiesel fuel. An old-school road-dog troubadour with new school wheels, Willie plays concerts year-round, tirelessly touring on Honeysuckle Rose III (he rode his first two buses into the ground), taking his music and fans to places that are always worth the ride.

The very first musician to perform on the premiere episode of Austin City Limits in 1974, Willie Nelson was inducted into the inaugural class of the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame by fellow Texan Matthew McConaughey on Saturday, April 26, 2014. “There would be no Austin City Limits without Willie Nelson,” McConaughey told the audience assembled at the University of Texas at Austin, the original home of what is now America’s longest-running televised music program.

Willie Nelson, who turned 81 on April 29/April 30, is an American original, a sublime singer, master tunesmith and outlaw country’s most enduring archetype.

This album contains no booklet.