Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and Ray Price -- Last of the Breed

Back in the '80s, my dad called it "Willie Nelson's Record of the Month Club." Two decades later, the Red Headed Stranger still cranks out albums at an alarming rate for a man of any age. Twenty years ago Willie suffered at the hands of major label expectations and incredibly cheesy production. Though well-established even back then, he now enjoys an artistic freedom almost completely unprecedented in the music industry. And he wields it like a Tommy Gun, spraying his inspirational bullets through every genre of music that strikes his fancy, making them all his own in the process. Dispensing for the moment with his mercurial roulette wheel of stylistic variation, Willie reunites here with Merle Haggard and Ray Price to produce a remarkably enjoyable two-CD set of traditional Country & Western Swing that finds all three still in fine fettle. Price, in particular, still emotes with a dignified, Countrypolitan earnestness in a distinguished baritone undiminished by the years. In a contemporary Country music scene populated with and dominated by youthful overrated hacks, pimped and promoted for their physical beauty as opposed to real talent, these three withered, wrinkled and bloody-knuckled old hands join together again to make the old-school real deal sound effortlessly easy. The emotion and soul-stirring phrasing pours from their lips like fine wine from a dusty old cask. Timeless stuff. (Ric Hickey) Grade: A