Track Listing

1. Do Right Woman, Do Right Man
2. Always On My Mind
3. A Whiter Shade Of Pale
4. Let It Be Me
5. Staring Each Other Down
6. Bridge Over Troubled Water
7. Old Fords And A Natural Stone
8. Permanently Lonely
9. Last Thing I Needed First Thing This Morning
10. The Party's Over
11. The Man Who Owes Everyone
12. I'm A Memory

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23666 in Music
• Released on: 2003-10-21
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Extra tracks, Original recording remastered

Customer Reviews

Gotta love it!
This is a great album! I just listened to it for the first time. You can infer from the track list that it is pop done up Willie style, but that is not a bad thing. They are all good songs, and this reissue has two bonus tracks that are also excellent. I've seen reviews of this that say it's one of his weaker efforts, but I disagree. (Glad I didn't listen to them!) The arrangements have variety, and are always tasteful and not overdone. The musical details are interesting. Another plus is the backing vocal by Toni Wine (of girl group fame) on "Permanently Lonely." If you like pop with great tunes and a sincere heartfelt message, you will love this CD.

An all time favorite
This is a CD I've been listening to for the last 20 years and I've never gotten tired of it. It's more mellow pop than it is country. Willie's voice is clear as a bell and the quality of the recording is amazing -- crisp and sharp with every instrument defined and audible.

"Always on My Mind" is, of course, one of the best known love songs of the 20th century. Almost as good are two other songs on the CD: "Old Fords and Natural Stone" and a song with a clever hook, "The last thing I needed the first thing this morning (was to have you walk out on me)." Most of the other songs are covers Willie performs adequately, if not with inspiration. But the three great songs on this CD put it in the must-have category.

One of his many classics
It is great to see this album re-mastered, now with two extra tracks (The man who owns everyone, I'm a memory). My review is based on the original album - however, my experience of other re-masters (including Willie's Stardust album) is that the sound quality will be better and the new tracks are likely to be of a high quality.

The title track was written for Elvis Presley to record, though Brenda Lee recorded it first - about six months before Elvis. Exactly why Willie chose to record this particular song is a mystery to me, but he certainly made a good choice. It became one of his trademark recordings, becoming a huge American pop hit for him. Sadly, this success was not repeated in the UK, where the version by the Pet Shop Boys went all the way to number one. Nevertheless, Willie's version helped to establish his fan base in the UK.

Aside from the title track, there are covers of songs made famous by Aretha Franklin (Do right woman), Procol Harum (Whiter shade of pale - with Waylon), Everly brothers (Let it be me) and Simon and Garfunkel (Bridge over troubled water).

Willie wrote some of the other songs though in some cases they are re-recordings - Permanently lonely and The party's over both date back to the sixties, when Willie recorded them for RCA. I believe Old fords and a natural stone and Last thing I needed first thing this morning were new for this album. I'm not sure about Staring each other down.

So, when this album was released, very few of the songs were new but several were obscure and all were transformed by Willie, whose covers never sound like the originals or any other versions.

This is one of Willie's best original albums.