Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Night Life
2. Hello Walls
3. Crazy
4. Funny How Time Slips Away
5. I Never Cared for You
6. The Party's Over
7. Good Times
8. Me And Paul
9. Shotgun Willie
10. Bloody Mary Morning
11. Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain
12. Good Hearted Woman (with Waylon Jennings)
13. If You've Got the Money I've Got the Time
14. Uncloudy Day
15. Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys (with Waylon Jennings)
16. Georgia on My Mind
17. Blue Skies
18. All of Me
19. Heartbreak Hotel (with Leon Russell)
20. Help Me Make It Through the Night
21. Whiskey River (live)
22. Stay a Little Longer (live)

Disc 2:

1. My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys
2. Faded Love (with Ray Price)
3. On the Road Again
4. Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground
5. Always on My Mind
6. Last Thing I Needed First Thing This Morning
7. Pancho & Lefty (with Merle Haggard)
8. To All the Girls I've Loved Before (with Julio Iglesias)
9. City of New Orleans
10. Seven Spanish Angels (with Ray Charles)
11. Forgiving You Was Easy
12. Highwayman
13. Living in the Promiseland
14. Nothing I Can Do About It Now
15. Graceland
16. Everywhere I Go (with Emmylou Harris)
17. Slow Dancing (U2 featuring Willie Nelson, Mickey Raphael on harmonica)
18. Mendocino County Line (with Lee Ann Womack)
19. One Time Too Many (with Steven Tyler and Aerosmith) (previously unreleased)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1076 in Music
• Released on: 2003-04-01
• Number of discs: 2

Amazon.com
With 41 tracks drawn from nine record labels, the two-disc Essential Willie Nelson is impressive in its breadth. Disc one is simply superb; it begins with 1961's "Night Life," recorded for the obscure Bellaire label, and moves on to several of Nelson's early 1960s Liberty recordings, an overlooked gem recorded for Monument in 1964 ("I Never Cared for You"), a cherry-picked selection of his RCA and Atlantic sides, and finally his mid-1970s hits for Columbia (where he found his greatest chart success, beginning, in 1975, with the No. 1 single "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain"). Disc two, however, is hit-or-miss. Classics like "On the Road Again," "Pancho & Lefty," and "Nothing I Can Do About It Now" are offset by such lesser material as "To All The Girls I've Loved Before" (recorded with Latin pop star Julio Iglesias), the phoned-in "City of New Orleans," and the sounds-better-on-paper "Highwayman" collaboration with Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, and Waylon Jennings. (Just because they all made it to No. 1 doesn't make them "essential.") Nelson's two best albums of the 1990s, Across the Borderline and Teatro, are represented by a paltry two songs. The disc ends with collaborations with U2, Lee Ann Womack, and Steven Tyler and Aerosmith (the previously unreleased "One Time Too Many"). None is particularly worthy of a best-of collection. Still, while it doesn't quite live up to its billing, the Essential Willie Nelson offers an excellent career overview of one of country music's true legends. --David Hill

Customer Reviews

Great CD!!!
This is a great CD with lots of different music! Willie is always good but the combination with other artists and older and newer songs makes this CD special. There was stuff we hadn't heard before!

Surprisingly Good
This was a gift for my wife, and since I live with her and occasionally drive in the van with her, I have heard this CD several times. I would not call myself a big Willie Nelson fan, but I have come to appreciate his music, thanks to my wife. There are 2 CD's loaded with songs, and at the current price it is a steal. if you buy this CD you will not be disappointed....unless you hate country music.

Gotta Love Willy!
Loved this set. The second cd in this set is a compilation of Willie's duets. It's excellent! This one cd is worth the price of the set!