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Willie Nelson: Red Headed Stranger (Columbia)

Nick Tosches, Creem, August 1975

I USED TO think Willie Nelson wrote sissy songs, that he was just another doily-brained sensitivo. Then, about two years ago, I came across an old album of his, Country Music Concert, recorded in 1966 at Panther Hall in Fort Worth. The album is a whorl, a beautiful whorl of piss-in-the-wind sensibilities and stomach poetry, and it slapped my opinion of Willie Nelson into an about-face. I began paying more attention to him.

Total word count of piece: 418

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