The Vinyl of the Day is ‘Pancho & Lefty’, by Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard, 1983. One of only 2 ‘Country’ vinyl albums in my collection, ‘Pancho & Lefty’ was a blockbuster album and dominated country music for the year. It helped establish both artists as two of the best-selling and most critically acclaimed of the genre. Nelson and Haggard were two of Nashville’s biggest artists of the time, Willie at his creative peak and Merle having just released a successful comeback “Big City” two years previously. The two men’s voices (Willie’s higher, more plaintive and Merle’s low and gravelly) merge beautifully together, and the songs are masterfully written pieces of real storytelling - which is what made the album a major hit for over 2 years. Along with a number of other hits on the album (such as ‘Reasons To Quit’), the title song was a cover of Townes Van Zandt’s previous recording, and the two old masters did such a legendary job of covering it that it went on to be a ‘standard’ they would perform together in concerts for decades to come.
An interesting part of the album and the song; it marked the same time that Willie Nelson was expanding his career into acting, and he had just finished his western, ‘Barbarosa’ co-starring Gary Busey (and Gilbert Roland’s final film). It’s one of my absolute favorite films and what I think is one of the best westerns ever; Willie plays the part of an aging legendary bandit in Mexico, who comes across Gary Busey’s young character (who is running away from accidentally killing his brother-in-law), takes him under his wing and teaches him to be an honorable gunman and eventual bandit too. Willie is absolutely perfect in the role, it’s really the part he was born to play - actually he’s wearing his ‘Barbarosa’ hat and costume on the album cover, and in the music video that was shot for ‘Pancho & Lefty’! If you’re a fan of Willie or westerns, I highly recommend you seek the film out, you won’t be disappointed. (PS — I've worked with Gary Busey a couple of times, and he's exactly what you think.)
Willie Nelson is not only a musical legend, but also a True American Hero with his political activism, such as with Farm Aid, decriminalization of marijuana, and his opinions towards helping Syrian refugees and other downtrodden peoples - from the PBS article by Joshua Barajas when Willie won a special award in 2015 from the Library of Congress;
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/willie-nelson-sings-theres-room-for-everyone-in-america/
In front of a Washington, D.C., crowd, including a smattering of lawmakers, the 82-year-old “outlaw” musician sang that there’s “room for everyone” in America, after accepting the Library of Congress’ Gershwin Prize for Popular Song on Wednesday night.
“I think this is one of the most appropriate songs that we could do for this period in America,” Nelson told the crowd at Washington’s DAR Constitution Hall. “Many years ago, I recorded this song and I felt like this might be a good time to kind of try to bring it back.”
Bookended by his sons Lukas and Micah, Nelson then eased into 1986’s “Living in the Promiseland,” where he sang, “Give us your tired, your weak, and we will make them strong … There’s still a lot of love, living in the Promiseland.” At center stage, Nelson gave his variation of the poem found at the Statue of Liberty’s feet.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) gave Nelson a big thumbs-up, while GOP congresswoman Candice Miller smiled warmly. Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) also smiled and clapped generally throughout, but House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), as spotted by NewsHour’s political director Lisa Desjardins, watched expressionless, mostly thumbed through his cell phone until the end of the song, when he clapped with the rest of the audience.
Only a man who once smoked weed atop the White House, according to Willie lore, could make a room with politicians slightly uncomfortable.
AllMusic Review by Martin Monkman
On Pancho & Lefty, their first album together, Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson managed a rare feat: an album by two legends that lives up to, and at one point exceeds, expectations. In 1982, both artists were at the top of their game, Haggard just having released a great comeback album in Big City, and Nelson in the midst of a creative and commercial peak. The centerpiece of the album is the title track. Penned by Texas songwriter Townes Van Zandt, the ballad of two renegades and the respect they earned from the law is the perfect vehicle for Haggard and Nelson, both of whom managed to achieve legendary status in spite of being outsiders to the Nashville establishment. The song’s production enhances its power; it is polished without becoming slick (note Nelson’s double-tracked guitar solo), and there’s power in reserve – in the wrong hands, this could easily have become a bombastic, over the top performance. Nothing else on the album comes close to the majesty of “Pancho and Lefty.” That’s not to say that the rest is not good, though. The other songs are all relaxed ruminations on life, from the joys of taking it easy on the throwaway “It’s My Lazy Day” to the pain of love lost on Nelson’s chestnut “Half a Man.” Throughout, Haggard and Nelson duet in equal measure; one gets the sense that this is a collaboration in every sense. The sequence of “Reasons to Quit” and “No Reason to Quit” is an inspired bit of programming, both honky tonk songs of the first rank. Pancho & Lefty was followed in 1987 by Seashores of Old Mexico, a far less successful collaboration.