Willie Nelson Stinks!

[spintzdee]

Dirty Hippy Cowboy. I have struggled with this for years and I am finally ready to admit it to myself and everyone else. Willie Nelson sucks! It was very hard for me to come to this conclusion. I mean this is a highwayman! This guy hung out with Cash! This guy is practically Waylon's brother. But I have been thinking and listening to Willies stuff makes me realise that he, more than most paved the way to the crappy pop country we hear today. Seriously...listen to his stuff. Now I don't want to say that I don't like anything he has done, but honestly most of the good songs are with other people like Johnny, waylon and Emmy lou Harris. I recently bought The Great Divide for like 3 dollars and I might as well have been listening to Rascal Flatts! I really hate myself for saying this about a legend, but I think it's time that someone does! Someone please try to convince me otherwise!

[HellboyOne]

Willie Nelson wrote Patsy Cline's Crazy. Period.

[spintzdee]

That is true. Thanks.
but then again...he doesn't even write his own songs anymore. The all come out of the nashville machine.

[HellboyOne]

If the new stuff's bad, don't listen to it. Stevie Wonder's output for the last...I don't know...20 years...blows. It doesn't mean Stevie Wonder blows. He still made some of the greatest albums of the 60s and 70s.

[Lester Toil]

As a singer or a songwriter he blows? He never claimed to be a good singer. But many of his songs have helped MAKE great musician's career such as the legendary "Georgia" performed by Ray Charles.

It's interesting you mention about Willie hanging out with folks like Johnny Cash because I think Johnny Cash's talent is mediocre. He sings in a bland monotone way and he hasn't written that many earth-shaking country songs (that I know of at least).

[HellboyOne]

Yikes! Johnny Cash is a great storyteller and I think there's a subtlety in the emotion he lets out in his songs. But he gets abominably sad and downright angry in a lot of his songs.

To be honest I'm not that familiar with any albums by Stevie Wonder after, say, 1990. As a performer, he's still quite amazing.

[spintzdee]

Woah! That is almost blasphemous to say about the man in black. It's not only his singing that makes him great, it's everything about him. The man is a legend. He commands respect.
I once saw Henry Rollins on his speaking tour and he told a story of when him, Joe Strummer, and Tom Petty all went to see Johnny Cash and they were all completely star-struck! These guys were all close to legends in their own right. I thought it was pretty cool to hear how these guys felt about seeing Johnny Cash.
Speaking of legends that fall short in our eyes, What's up with Merle Haggard hooking up and doing songs with Gretchen Wilson. I am having a really hard time listening to him anymore knowing he has stooped to that!
By the way, I will always love to listen to Whiskey River and Luchenbach Texas, So I don't hate all of his stuff, just the stuff that paved the way for all the crap we hear on today's radio. And as for georgia and Crazy, Ray Charles and Patsy Cline did them better.