Willie Nelson - One Hell Of a Ride (4-CD Box Set)
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Free Music Notes for One Hell Of a Ride (4-CD Box Set)
Free Music Review: Beer For My Horses
Hit: 5 Stars
An incredibly listenable overview of Willies entire catalogue. The rarities and generous song selection make this even more satisfying a listen than the Essential collection from a few years ago.Free Music Review: One Hell Of A Ride
Hit: 5 Stars
Willie Nelson-One Hell Of A Ride (4-cd Box Set) *****
To celebrate Willie Nelson's up coming birthday of however many years it has been, I think it is 75 but I could be wrong, but anyway to celebrate this a boxed set of all that is Willie Nelson is being released called One Hell Of A Ride, and it is 'one hell of a ride.' This is a must have for any Willie fan, I mean it has essentially anything you could ever want, with the exception of maybe a few hidden personal treasures.
This career spanning set has rare cover songs, original material, rare tracks, and much more. This covers Willie from the beginning and well might I add. Whether your new to Willie's music or a life long fan of Mr. Nelson, this box set is a great addition to any music collection.
Free Music Review: Great music - great mastering - great singer
Hit: 5 Stars
Agree with the other reviewer that a 5 (or 6) disc set would have covered Willie completely - up to and including previously unreleased songs but this is superb set - with great acoustics and multiple label sources. For the newcomer, it really provides ample reasons as to why Willie Nelson is a American legend.
Only beef is biodegradable packaging - why would anyone want the packaging for their CDs to be biodegradable?
Free Music Review: It's a 5-er
Hit: 5 Stars
I have to give it a full five stars and respectfully disagree with the previous reviewer that it's missing a chunk. There's something to be said for leaving us wanting more than too full to digest. I have a few Willie cds along with old vinyl but no box sets so I was thrilled to get such a bang for my buck and am quite sure it will take me a long time to get tired of it. A perfect collection for someone like me who has a moderate Willie collection that needed a little help to round it out.Free Music Review: Great collection, but once again...frustrating
Hit: 4 Stars
Let me start by saying that I'm a big Willie Nelson fan, and I hate docking this collection a star. It's not because the material on this set isn't first-rate. On the contrary; everything here is classic. Even some of the lesser-known and/or second-tier songs would be career highlights for most artists. But the problem with this set is the same problem suffered by every Willie Nelson compilation released so far: what's missing from it.
There are several good Willie Nelson compilations on the market right now: the classic (and recently remastered) "Greatest Hits (and Some That Will Be)," the boxed set "Revolutions of Time," and two compilations both called "Essential Willie Nelson" (one a single-disc covering his early years and the other a recent double-disc covering his entire career). While all of these collections are great, none is truly comprehensive. I was really hoping that this would finally be the collection that "got it right," but once again, we're given a Willie Nelson compilation that is frustratingly incomplete.
Scanning the titles on this box, I noticed that some of my favorites were missing. So, I went back to the four previously-mentioned collections, all of which I own, and I made a list of the songs that were included on one or more of those collections but are missing here. Some omissions were major, some minor; but it was surprising just how many true classics were M.I.A. Need proof? Take a quick look at the list below, and see how many of your favorite Willie Nelson songs are on it:
Last Thing I Needed First Thing This Morning
All of Me
Blue Skies
Faded Love (w/ Ray Price)
Forgiving You Was Easy
I Never Cared For You
Railroad Lady
Heartaches of a Fool
Look What Thoughts Can Do
Remember Me (When the Candle Lights Are Gleaming)
Midnight Rider
December Day
Healing Hands of Time
Darkness on the Face of the Earth
My Own Peculiar Way
Waltz Across Texas
Some Other World
Phases & Stages (Circles, Cycles and Scenes)
Time of the Preacher
It's Not Supposed to Be That Way
Summertime
Everything Is Beautiful (In It's Own Way)
Take It To the Limit
How Do You Feel About Foolin' Around?
I'm Movin' On
Slow Movin' Outlaw
Are There Any More Real Cowboys?
They All Went to Mexico
Texas On a Saturday Night
Heartland
Nobody Slides, My Friend
Little Old Fashioned Karma
Harbor Lights
Without a Song
Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues
Who'll Buy My Memories?
When I Dream
There Is No Easy Way (But There's a Way)
Ole Buttermilk Sky
A Horse Called Music
Nothing I Can Do About It Now
Is the Better Part Over?
Ain't Necessarily So
Kind of shocking. If you're a Willie Nelson fan, you probably found a good disc's worth of must-have classics, and that's my point. Why didn't they make this set a five-disc box and include all of the classics in his catalog? Then, anyone looking for a primer to Willie's career would have the entire canon available for a single purchase.
Now, don't get me wrong. This is a great collection on its own merits, and it is still probably the best place to start for any newcomer. It's also a good compilation, even if you have all of the previously mentioned sets, because it does a great job of finding classic rarities and lesser-known gems. It also does an excellent job of summing up the later part of Willie's career, which has been, honestly, pretty uneven. But as a complete career overview, it's still disappointing.
If you don't own anything by Willie Nelson, I would advise you to buy this set first, but just realize that there's still a lot of great material out there. In addition to the previous song list, there are several albums that are classics in and of themselves ("Yesterday's Wine," "Shotgun Willie," "Phases & Stages," "Red Headed Stranger," "Stardust," and latter-day cult classic "Spirit" being possibly the most essential ones). Maybe one day somebody will get it right. And who knows? If Willie Nelson has a late-career renaissance like Bob Dylan, maybe by then it will need a sixth disc. For right now, though, this will have to do.