Willie Nelson- Dream Chaser
Label: Legacy
Producer: Buddy Cannon
Reaching one’s ninety-third birthday seems like a staggering milestone for any average person to imagine. But for Willie Nelson, easily the most prolific recording artist in history at this point, another trip around the sun merely means another new period to grace us with more fresh gold from his staggering and never-ending catalog. His eighty-something studio album, Dream Chaser continues the fruitful collaborative union between Nelson and producer Buddy Cannon that has been the common thread through this latest renaissance of records for the Red Headed Stranger, dating back to 2012 and now surpassing twenty studio sets. As has been par for the past several years, Nelson pivots back from a tribute set after last fall’s ode to Merle Haggard, with a standard set of fresh, contemporary compositions and curations. We learned long ago that his vast quantity of output doesn’t trump the quality of his music; a 21st century Willie record is always thoroughly solid at minimum, with moments of his untouchable greatness and brilliance never far around the corner.
Dream Chaser most certainly continues this trend, and with its track-list almost completely co-written between Nelson and Cannon themselves, it feels like one of Nelson’s most cohesive and straight-forwardly country original sets in a good stretch. The title track is heartwarming and poignant reflection by Nelson on the life and career he has forged, colored with bewilderment by both the fast passage of time and the opportunity to do what he loves for a living, with the unsurprising but nonetheless reassuring notion that he’ll continue to craft music until the very end. The co-writing presence of another great who could also relate to that mantra, Bob Dylan, provides the album’s most buzzworthy track with “I Can’t Read Your Mind”, a vintage meeting of two brilliant artistic minds who last collaborated on 1993’s Across the Borderline. It’s an excellent track, but rather than stealing the spotlight based on its box-office billing, it’s merely one of ten singularly strong songs and performances that comprises a sturdy overall collection.
The sweeping charm of “We’d Make A Good Movie” and the soul-stirring “Love Overdue” (co-written by Nelson’s long-time harmonica player, Mickey Raphael and punctuated with one of his signature folksy solos) both provide the kind of classic Willie romance that has soundtracked our lives for decades. Meanwhile, lonesome laments like “Fly Away”, “Whiskey Wants Me To”, “Wonder What I’m Gonna Do”, and the gorgeously steel-soaked “I Don’t Think I’ve Cried Today” are prime exercises in Nelson’s iconic, golden brand of classic country, with each of them capable of holding their own adjacent to any of the man’s most renowned hits. They all set the stage marvelously for the closing cover of Earl Montgomery’s hidden jewel, “Developing My Pictures”. Once recorded by George Jones, it’s a mystery listening to it that it never became a standard during classic country’s golden era, and it’s certainly worthy of that belated status with Nelson’s wonderful rendition acting as the vessel.
As is always the case on a Nelson-Cannon production, the arrangements boast both a vintage spirit and sound, brought to vibrant life by the bold power of modern studio standards. Instrumentally, Nelson and his session musicians likewise remain effortlessly pure in sound and dexterous in execution. Most notably, it’s certainly worthwhile to mention that Willie himself sounds more robust and full-throated vocally that he has on several albums, and at a brisk thirty minute run-time, he and the music never overstay their welcome. Simply put, Dream Chaser is concise, moving, and superbly performed, which is of course a marvel in and of itself given Nelson’s age and artistic mileage at this point. But that sentiment is merely an obligatory cliche for any Willie Nelson review at this point. The fact remains that, regardless of age, prior legacy, or any other industry barometer, Willie Nelson stands tall as one of the most fertile and important musical forces of the 2020s, and to the very same standards that he was for the six previous decades as well.
Track Listing:
- “Dream Chaser” (Willie Nelson, Buddy Cannon, Bobby Tomberlin)
- “Fly Away” (Cannon, Bobby Whitlock)
- “We’d Make A Good Movie” (Nelson, Cannon, Tomberlin)
- “I Can’t Read Your Mind” (Nelson, Cannon, Bob Dylan)
- “Whiskey Wants Me To” (Cannon, Tomberlin)
- “Wonder What I’m Gonna Do” (Nelson, Cannon)
- “After All” (Nelson, Cannon)
- “Love Overdue” (Mickey Raphael, Anna Lisa Graham, Donald W. Poythress)
- “I Don’t Think I’ve Cried Today” (Nelson, Cannon, Tomberlin)
- “Developing My Pictures” (Earl Montgomery)
The 706 
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