Willie, Aerosmith Song Found
A lost collaboration between Willie Nelson and Aerosmith will surface on The Essential Willie Nelson, due April 1st on Columbia/Legacy. The song, “One Time Too Many,” was written by Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler and was recorded in Vancouver in 1987.
“Willie Nelson’s image and persona are only overshadowed by the character of his guitar,” Tyler said in the liner notes for the album. “To some, his imperfections and outlaw image ruffle feathers, to the rest of us it only raises the old question: Why fuck with perfection? He’s the elder statesman of cool and the ambassador of good will and high times.”
The Essential Willie Nelson is part of an extensive series of reissues marking the Red Headed Stranger’s seventieth birthday (April 30th). The two-CD set will span Nelson’s career, from a 1961 recording of “Nightlife” to his Liberty and RCA recordings from the Sixties, through his groundbreaking Seventies concept albums and into the Eighties, Nineties and 2001’s The Great Divide. As Nelson has been wont to do, Essential will feature plenty of duets, both obvious and odd, including the singer-songwriter’s pairings with Waylon Jennings (“Good Hearted Woman,” “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys”), Ray Price (“Faded Love”), Leon Russell (“Heartbreak Hotel”), Ray Charles (“Seven Spanish Angels”), Julio Iglesias (“To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before”), Emmylou Harris (“Everywhere I Go”), Merle Haggard (“Pancho and Lefty”) and Lee Ann Womack (“Mendocino County Line”). The set will also feature the rarity “Slow Dancing,” his collaboration with U2, issued as a b-side on the band’s 1997 single for “If God Will Send His Angels.”
This May, four Nelson albums — Willie and Family Live (1978), San Antonio Rose (with Ray Price, 1980), Always on My Mind (1982) and Pancho and Lefty (with Merle Haggard, 1983) will be reissued with bonus tracks. In the summer, four more titles — To Lefty From Willie (1977), the soundtrack to Honeysuckle Rose (1980), Greatest Hits (and Some That Will Be) (1981) and Tougher Than Leather (1983) — will also be reissued.
Track listing for The Essential Willie Nelson:
Disc one:
Night Life
Hello Walls
Crazy
Funny How Time Slips Away
I Never Cared for You
The Party’s Over
Good Times
Me and Paul
Shotgun Willie
Bloody Mary Morning
Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain
Good Hearted Woman
If You’ve Got the Money (I’ve Got the Time)
Uncloudy Day
Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys
Georgia on My Mind
Blue Skies
All of Me
Heartbreak Hotel
Help Me Make It Through the Night
Whiskey River
Stay a Little Longer
Disc two:
My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys Faded Love
On the Road Again
Angel Flying too Close to the Ground
Always on My Mind
Last Thing I Needed First Thing This Morning
Pancho and Lefty
To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before
City of New Orleans
Seven Spanish Angels
Forgiving You Was Easy
Highwayman
Living in the Promiseland
Nothing I Can Do About It Now
Graceland
Everywhere I Go
Slow Dancing
Mendocino County Line
One Time Too Many