Willie Nelson

This new collection is a career spanner jampacked with 22 songs, with each era of Willie's illustrious six decade career chronicled. It includes massive hits like "On The Road Again," "Always On My Mind" and "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain" next to a number of his 21st century gems, including latter day classics like "Ride Me Back Home" and "Roll Me Up." It features classic collaborations with the likes of Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings and Julio Iglesias, Willie's early versions of songs made famous by others in the early 60s like "Crazy" and "Night Life," alongside interpretations of others' songs that he made his own from Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust" to Arlo Guthrie's "City Of New Orleans" to Pearl Jam's "Just Breathe."

• - Disc 1 -
• 1 On the Road Again
• 2 Whiskey River
• 3 Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain
• 4 Me and Paul
• 5 Always on My Mind
• 6 Shotgun Willie
• 7 Crazy
• - Disc 2 -
• 1 Pancho and Lefty (W/Merle Haggard)
• 2 Georgia on My Mind
• 3 Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys (W/Waylon Jennings)
• 4 Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground
• 5 Still Is Still Moving to Me
• 6 Night Life
• - Disc 3 -
• 1 I Never Cared for You
• 2 Ride Me Back Home
• 3 To All the Girls I've Loved Before (W/Julio Iglesias)
• 4 Roll Me Up (W/Snoop Dog, Jamey Johnson & Kris Kristofferson)
• 5 Across the Borderline
• 6 My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys
• 7 Funny How Time Slips Away
• - Disc 4 -
• 1 City of New Orleans
• 2 Just Breathe (W/Lukas Nelson)
• 3 Last Thing I Needed First Thing This Morning
• 4 Living in the Promiseland
• 5 Who'll Buy My Memories?

Willie Nelson’s 1974 classic, celebrating its 50th Anniversary in March, just prior to RSD. If Shotgun Willie played a bit like a concept album, Phases and Stages was a full-blown one, tracing the dissolution of a marriage and devoting one side to the wife's perspective, the second to the husband's….Phases and Stages is easily the equal of its remarkable predecessor, a wonderful set of music that resonates deeply, as deeply as the words. Make no mistake -- the deceptively relaxed arrangements, including the occasional strings, not only highlight Nelson's clever eclecticism, but they also heighten the emotional impact of the album. And this is a hell of an emotional record, where even each side's celebratory honky tonk numbers (the medley "Sister's Coming Home/Down at the Corner Beer Joint" and "Pick Up the Tempo," respectively) are muted by sadness. Then, there are the centerpieces: "Walkin'," where the woman decides it's time to move on; "Pretend I Never Happened," perhaps the coldest ending to a relationship ever written; "Bloody Mary Morning," a bleary-eyed morning-after tale that became a standard; "It's Not Supposed to Be That Way," a nearly unbearably melancholy account of a love gone wrong; and "Heaven and Hell," a waltz summary of the relationship. Any two of these would have formed a strong core for an album, but placed together in a narrative context, their impact is even more considerable. As a result, this is not just one of Willie Nelson's best records, but one of the great concept albums overall. 140g black viny