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Photo credit: David McClister
Willie Nelson is wrapping up more than a decade of recording for Nashville’s Lost Highway Records with a 17-track compilation of highlights from previous albums for the label along with three unreleased cuts and one previously digital-only release.
Lost Highway is titled both after the label and the classic titletrack, a remorseful and cautionary country tale that was written and recorded by Leon Payne and famously covered by Hank Williams. It features a guest list including the likes of Elvis Costello and Diana Krall, Lucinda Williams, Rob Thomas, Shania Twain, Toby Keith, Lee Ann Womack, and fellow country legend Ray Price (on “Lost Highway”).
The varied song selection was written by Nelson and such other top country and pop tunesmiths as Jimmy Cliff, Lucinda Williams, Bob Wills, Rob Thomas, Bernie Taupin, Eddy Arnold, Fred Rose and Cindy Walker--the late, influential songwriter whose songs “You Don’t Know Me” and “Bubbles In My Beer” were covered by Nelson on his 2006 album tribute You Don't Know Me: The Songs Of Cindy Walker (both are now on Lost Highway).
“Willie has reached this place in his career where he could have easily rested on his laurels and worked as he pleased, but he still has something to say and he still has something to give,” says Kim Buie, the Lost Highway label’s vice president of a&r, who helped with the album’s song choices. “Be it recording the songs of Cindy Walker--an idea he'd had for a long time and someone he wanted to pay tribute to--or finally seeing the release of the [2005] reggae album Countryman--a dormant project [including Lost Highway’s ‘The Harder They Come’] that he always felt needed to be finished and released--or simply finding ways to record with his lifetime friend and mentor Ray Price or with peers Merle Haggard and Kris Kristofferson, or writing new songs as evidenced by the breathtaking track ‘Back To Earth’ [from his 2006 Ryan Adams-produced album Songbird and also on Lost Highway], his life on the road or in the studio continues to be dedicated to making music. The best we could do at Lost Highway was to help him continue to capture it and release it.”
Lost Highway is a country label that has also specialized in alternative rock and country releases by artists like Adams, Costello, The Jayhawks, Shelby Lynne, Van Morrison and Lucinda Williams.
Special tracks on Lost Highway include “Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other,” Nelson’s tongue-in-cheek heretofore iTunes-only sensation, and three previously unreleased songs: “Ain’t Going Down On Brokeback Mountain,” an outtake from the 2008 Moment Of Forever album sessions, and “Superman” and “Both Sides of Goodbye,” which were produced by Chips Moman from sessions he and Nelson completed in 2005.
“Willie Nelson is like Bob Marley,” notes Buie. “There’s hardly a place in the world that doesn’t know who he is. He’s an icon and a beacon, a gentleman and an everyman. He’s provided a voice for so many human emotions, making him the guy you’d most want to spend time with.”
The opportunity to work with Nelson “and to be able to release a small portion of his life’s work is an honor and a genuine privilege,” she adds. “He’s a good man and an amazing talent who happens to have quite a knack for writing and choosing great songs with genuine appeal. The Lost Highway collection is merely a small sample of some of the great albums and collaborations we’ve released for Willie over the last 10 years along with a few unreleased gems.”
The release comes at a time of typically high Nelson activity. He has been on the road since the beginning of the month with Bob Dylan and John Mellencamp as part of the acclaimed “The Bob Dylan Show” tour package, which has been playing mainly at minor league baseball stadiums. At the July 15 New York area tour stop at New Britain Stadium in New Britain, Connecticut, he sounded as good as ever, played as good as ever, and satisfied as good as ever.
And it was announced a week ago that this year’s Farm Aid, the annual concert event organied by Nelson, Mellencamp and Neil Young to raise awareness about the loss of family farms and to raise funds to keep farm families on their land, will take place Oct. 4 at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in St. Louis.
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Willie is still the greatest!
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