This box documents Willie Nelson’s short stint on Atlantic Records-two albums, one in 1972 and one in 1974. The period was transitional in one sense as it introduced him to a broader audience as an outlaw. What’s remarkable to notice on Shotgun Willie and Phases and Stages is how much of his genre-crossing sensibility was in place 30-plus years ago.

 

It would seem like that would be most obvious on Phases and Stages, which was recorded in Muscle Shoals with Jerry Wexler producing, but it stays surprisingly close to Nelson’s country roots. Shotgun Willie, on the hand, is surprisingly all over the place. As played here, “Whiskey River” is a blues and the title track is simply funky. On both albums, he has a jazz singer’s sense of rhythm and phrasing, and he’s clearly comfortable swinging. The ambition to be more than a rank and file country singer is also present here. Phases and Stages is a concept album of sorts, looking at a marriage’s break-up first from the woman’s perspective and then the man’s.

 

The package comes with a live disc, and he was already performing his older hits in medleys back then. It’s a recording of the Willie Nelson you hope to see when you go to see him live, marrying the honky-tonk to higher art. In fact, you get something grander these days—a visit to the American songbook and celebration of community—but as good as that is, I’d trade a song somewhere in the night for the electric version of “Bloody Mary Morning” presented here.