Willie Nelson - And Then I Wrote / 45RPM 2LP Analogue Productions

"Hello Walls, Crazy, Funny How Time Slips Away. These are some of the most memorable hits in Willie Nelson's songwriting canon. Willie Nelson, one of the most important artists in American music history, a giant like Elvis or Ella,

had these and other hits with his debut album "... And Then I Wrote". In 1961, after years of struggling in various places, Willie Nelson finally arrived in Nashville and became a success thanks to his gift for putting heartache and memories into lyrics.

Nelson's songs became big hits for Patsy Cline, Faron Young and Billy Walker. The royalty checks - fat ones - started rolling in. But Willie wanted more. These songs were his essence, and he wanted country music fans to know that they came from his soul.

The following autumn, in 1962, he released his first full-length album on Liberty Records. It was perhaps the most successful debut album in history.

How best to honour such an historic country classic with an Analogue Productions reissue? Well, for starters, there was no doubt that this classic deserved the wider groove spacing, improved pickup tracking and noticeable reduction in distortion and high-frequency

loss typical of a four-sided 45rpm AP reissue. Four gorgeous sides of 180-gram vinyl, pressed at Quality Record Pressings' own factory, as it should be. And the mastering? Again, nothing but first class. In the capable hands of our sound engineer Matthew Lutthans

of The Mastering Lab by Acoustic Sounds, who worked with the original master tape, the result is a fantastic sound. The Mastering Lab by Acoustic Sounds upholds the standard of quality set by the late Grammy Award-winning mastering engineer Doug Sax, who made

the studio famous.

It's not just the songs on the album that have entered the country canon, including the three aforementioned hits, but also deep tracks like 'Mr. Record Man', 'Undo The Right' and 'Wake Me When It's Over'. " ... And Then I Wrote" is not only one of the greatest debuts of all time

- it is one of the best singer-songwriter records ever recorded.

The glitz and glamour of the Nashville sound is mercifully absent from this record. The recordings were produced by Liberty's head of country, Joe Allison, partly at Music Row's famous Quonset Hut studio and partly in Hollywood. Allison appreciated Willie's idiosyncratic vocal style

and allowed his vocals to take centre stage, keeping the chorus in the background and dispensing with strings altogether.

The album produced one top ten single ("Touch Me") but none of the other three singles made it into the charts. If it were released today, it would be considered a Willie's greatest hits album. Patsy Cline presented her definitive version of 'Crazy' in 1961, and in the years since it's been

recorded by dozens of artists, it's the song that transformed Willie Nelson from a poet into a composer worthy of inclusion in the Great American Songbook. The re-release of "... And Then I Wrote" by Analogue Productions will find a place of honour among the most treasured LPs in your music collection.

Willie Nelson (g, voc); Billy Strange, Johnny Western, Roy Nichols (g); Earl Palmer (dr); u.a.

 

Title

Side One

1. Touch Me

2. Wake Me When It's Over

3. Hello Walls

Side Two

1. Funny How Time Slips Away

2. Crazy

3. The Part Where I Cry

Side Three

1. Mr. Record Man

2. Three Days

3. One Step Beyond

Side Four

1. Undo The Right

2. Darkness On The Face Of The Earth

3. Where My House Lives

Δίσκοι Βινυλίου	45 rpm
Record Label	Analogue Productions
Genre	Country