Willie Nelson: ...And Then I Wrote (opaque dark blue vinyl) [JACKPOT RECORDS]

Why you'll love it

This pressing comes on opaque dark blue vinyl. It's Nelson singing the songs that made his name as a writer for Patsy Cline, Faron Young and Billy Walker, and "Touch Me" gave him his second top ten country single, peaking at No. 7.

This edition

• Opaque dark blue vinyl
• Remastered

About the album

The title does a lot of quiet work. By 1962 Willie Nelson's songs had been hits for Faron Young, Ray Price and Patsy Cline, while the man himself was best known as the bass player in Price's touring band. A few years earlier he had sold Family Bible to guitar teacher Paul Buskirk for US$50. Hank Cochran convinced Liberty's Joe Allison to sign him, and Allison was happy to let him sing his own songs his own way.

Sessions began in Nashville in August and moved to Los Angeles in September, where guitarists Billy Strange, Roy Nichols and Johnny Western joined him for "Crazy," "Three Days," "Mr. Record Man" and "Darkness On The Face Of The Earth." Nelson wrote "Hello Walls" in a single afternoon at Pamper Music while Cochran was off making phone calls, and "The Part Where I Cry" went out as a single alongside "Touch Me."

That relaxed, behind-the-beat phrasing he became famous for is all here already. Nelson reckoned he wrote "Crazy" and "Funny How Time Slips Away" in a week or two in Houston, which is a better fortnight than most of us have had.

Also at Kops: more Willie Nelson on vinyl · browse Country

Tracklist

Listen

On Jackpot Records (orig. Liberty) (cat# JPR-046), a reissue of the 1962 album.