Willie Nelson & Family
5/29/84
Radio City Music Hall
New York, NY
Source: MAC; Nakamichi 300s > Sony D5 > 2 x Maxell XLII 90
Location: front row balcony
Transfer/Lineage: Master Audience Cassettes> Nakamichi Dragon>
Lunatec v3(24/88.2)> Lynx 16AES> Wavelab 6.10> r8brain PRO>
.wav @16/44.1> CD Wave> TLH> flac16
Taped by Rick Colyard
Transfer, edits and mastering by Alex Ford
All editing/mastering in 24/88.2 with UAD-1.
Metatagging with Tag&Rename.
CD I: [79:23]
01. crowd (0:57)
02. Whiskey River > (2:16)
03. Stay All Night (Stay A Little Longer) (3:56)
04. Funny How Time Slips Away > (2:30)
05. Crazy (1:38)
06. Nightlife (4:01)
07. Piano Jam (1:34)
08. Band intros (0:26)
09. If You've Got The Money Honey I've Got The Time (1:33)
10. Sweet Memories (2:59)
11. Workin' Man Blues > (3:30)
12. Help Me Make It Through The Night (3:35)
13. Me and Bobby McGee (3:18)
14. Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I'll Ever Do) (5:07)
15. Bloody Mary Morning (5:52)
16. Time Of The Preacher part 1 > (2:30)
17. I Could Not Believe It Was True > (1:04)
18. Time Of The Preacher part 2 > (1:18)
19. Blue Rock Montana/Red Headed Stranger > (1:11)
20. Red Headed Stranger > (0:25)
21. Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain (2:50)
22. Red Headed Stranger > (3:53)
23. Instrumental Jam > (2:46)
24. Blue Skies > (3:35)
25. Georgia On My Mind (3:38)
26. All Of Me (2:39)
27. Stardust > (4:43)
28. My Heroes Have All Been Cowboys > (1:22)
29. Mama Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys > (2:12)
30. I Can Get Off On You (1:51)
CD II: [35:49]
01. Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground (3:47)
02. On The Road Again (2:16)
03. Always On My Mind (3:40)
04. Will The Circle Be Unbroken > (2:21)
05. Amazing Grace > (5:50)
06. Uncloudy Day > (5:51)
Encore:
07. Who'll Buy My Memories > (3:44)
08. All The Girls I've Loved Before > (2:50)
09. Whiskey River > (3:48)
10. Outro Jam (1:37)
Comments:
- Excellent taping job by Rick. Thanks Rick!
- Thanks to Muletaper for getting the tapes to me.
New York Daily News
May 1984
by Bill Bell
There’s a line in one of Willie Nelson’s songs that goes, “How’m I doin’?” and when he half-spoke, half-sang it Thursday night at Radio City Music Hall, his audience responded with a burst of whooping approval.
Nelson, whose idea of dressing for success is baggy jeans, T-shirt and headband, responded with a terrific performance that showcased his love for country music, devotion to fundamentalist gospel music and respect for Tin Pan Alley.
It was like a party at times. Surprise guest Waylon Jennings joined Nelson on a few duets (“Good Hearted Woman” and a whimsical tribute to true love, “I Can Get Off On You”). Jessi Colter said howdy and sang a bit. And Paul Butterfield did some fine harmonica work during a gospel jam.
There were 37 songs in all, ranging form honytonker Lefty Frizell (“If You’ve Got the Money, I’ve Got the Time”) to Irving Berlin (“Blue Skies”), with Nelson singing almost nonstop for just over two hours. He said maybe 200 words and let his music do the talking. It was an eloquent evening.
His six-member backing band, Family, which includes sister Bobbie on piano, was smoking, especially lead guitarist Grady Martin (an all-time Nashville great) and harmonica playing Mickey Raphael. So was Nelson, who is no slouch as a guitarist himself.
He opened with “Whiskey River,” and as he often does, ran through some of his own rich, varied catalog of tunes. There was “Crazy” and “Funny How Time Just Slips Away,” plus “Bloody Mary Morning,” “Angel Flying Too Close to the Gound,” and “On the Road Again.” He did the “Red Headed Stranger” medley, a saga cycle that includes the break through best-selling “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.”
There was a Kris Kristofferson set, including, “Who’ll Buy My Memories” from the upcoming “The Songwriter” movie. There was a classic set (“Blue Skies,” “Georgia On My Mind,” a scorching version of “All of Me,” and “Stardust”). He did a couple of his national pop chart hits (“Always on My Mind” and, during a 15-minute encore, “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before”). There was gospel galore (“Amazing Grace” and, even better, “Uncloudy Day”).
He is possibly the most commanding all-around talent in country music, and it is well worth seeing how he does it.
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NY Times
POP: WILLIE NELSON SINGS
By Stephen Holden
Published: May 29, 1984
WILLIE NELSON and his loose association of musicians known as the Family ambled onto the stage of the Radio City Music Hall last Thursday and demonstrated that a knowing casualness and simplicity of performance can make genuinely eloquent pop music. The understated passion of Mr. Nelson's performances was significantly more powerful than the singing on some of his recent albums, which have seemed to strain for a self-consciously monumental aura.
Thursday's concert - the first show of a six-night stand at the Music Hall, opened with some duets by Mr. Nelson and his frequent cohort, Waylon Jennings. The duet segment was the only slack part of a show in which Mr. Nelson performed all his best- known original songs as well as pop standards such as ''Stardust,'' ''Blue Skies'' and ''All of Me,'' adapted into a spare, Texan swing idiom.
Mr. Nelson's ability to make everything from country tunes to hymns to pop standards sound fresh and spontaneous has to do with his conversational approach to lyrics. On the one hand, he takes for granted their familiarity enough to have no qualms about throwing away connective phrases. But then, with his granite- textured country baritone, he distills the material in key phrases delivered with an almost evangelical intensity.
Mr. Nelson's band played with the same loose, intuitive sense of the songs' emotional inner rhythms, as Mickey Raphael's harmonica interwove with Mr. Nelson's baritone almost like a plaintive second voice. And when Mr. Nelson elaborated original songs like ''Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground'' and ''Night Life'' on his acoustic guitar, he gave them a gypsylike intensity reminiscent of Django Reinhardt.