Willie Nelson: Dream Chaser

An album review of the 93 year old legend’s 156th album! Those numbers alone make it worth your time.

Willie Nelson

Dream Chaser

Sony Music Entertainment

Willie Nelson just turned 93 — this is his 156th album! — he is still in fine voice. Good enough. Better than that. Any signs of weariness add to the authenticity of the lyrics:

And his signature tone and bite on guitar ‘Trigger’ is still there too — you hear those lines that take from jazz and give to country:

Grabbing the headlines with this release is the fact that he co-wrote a tune with Bob Dylan.

His second time sharing a credit with Bob, and a lovely lilting ballad with wryly funny lyrics — about not being able to read a mind because the letters are too small:

You could suggest that this is the Wax Museum Version of Willie, the pantomime of himself, but I’d still rather hear that than almost anyone else, and certainly more so than anyone trying to sound like Willie. Leave the man to make sure he can get as close to sounding like himself as possible.

This is not The Red Headed Stranger, nor Teatro or Spirit, but it’s as good as many of the recent albums, and several from the early 00s even. And it’s better than so many in his enormous catalogue.

At just 10 songs and 30 minutes, this is a nice, controlled stopover from an artist that is still on the road, still thinking ahead to future albums, and still making music that is identifiably him, and identifiable ‘good’ if not great. It’s a miracle to even hear an artist this deep into work and still working.

And really there’s some lovely stuff here.

That’s all that matters.

Willie Nelson is a one-off, and he defies the odds, he defines his long legacy with this and so many other releases. And if you’ve ever been a fan, this bitter-sweet collection is worth your time.

It’s like dropping in to watch a mate blow out the candles on a birthday cake after so many years; like a beer withe old pal that passes through only now and then; like a catch up with someone you feel forever connected to regardless of time and place. Willie Nelson continues to be amazing. On this form, he might have another 20 or 30 records in him, and a decade or more to go…

Song titles about making good movies together, about developing pictures, about love overdue, and the whiskey that he feels he needs, I mean it’s just the way he speaks to and from another era, but drags it into today with the whip of his guitar.

Long live Willie Nelson. He has already. Maybe he will forever.