Every artist has to start somewhere\u2026 and for Willie Nelson, that beginning was And Then I Wrote<\/i> in 1962.<\/p>\n
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Having made a name for himself as a songwriter creating hits for other performers, Nelson finally got the chance to perform his own music with this release. So, don\u2019t be surprised if, when you listen to some of these songs, you begin hearing other artists performing the numbers \u2013 because chances are good someone else did.<\/p>\n
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It would be hard-pressed to call this a great album, but one has to consider that country music, while a viable genre for some time, was still very much in its own developmental stage. In this regard, with the exception of using slightly more complex chord progressions, Nelson\u2019s writing style didn\u2019t exactly break new ground. And, while his voice has pretty much the same timbre that we\u2019ve come to expect over the course of 60 years, Nelson was never necessarily the strongest singer out there \u2013 something this disc proves.<\/p>\n
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It has to be said that it seems strange to not hear artists like Faron Young or Patsy Cline performing \u201cHello Walls\u201d or \u201cCrazy,\u201d respectfully, as their renditions have become the de facto<\/i> standard for these songs that Nelson wrote \u2013 and that, in and of itself, is nothing to be ashamed of. It can\u2019t, however, be said that Nelson necessarily adds anything with his renditions of these timeless tracks; they\u2019re not unpleasant, but rather uninsipring.<\/p>\n
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In fact, \u201cuninsipring\u201d is a word that kept coming to mind throughout the 12 tracks on And Then I Wrote<\/i>. I can\u2019t say that songs like \u201cTouch Me,\u201d \u201cFunny How Time Slips Away,\u201d \u201cOne Step Beyond\u201d and \u201cThe Part Where I Cry\u201d are bad; if anything, they are products of their time. But, when listening to these songs, it\u2019s honestly difficult to picture Nelson as the superstar in the world of country music he was to become; this is merely a songwriter in his late twenties getting a chance to sing his own tracks. It doesn\u2019t exude the greatness that Nelson would earn in the decades to come.<\/p>\n
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The thing is, I want<\/i> to like this disc. One wants to be able to listen to it, and hear the germination of greatness within the half hour\u2019s worth of music. It\u2019s just not there\u2026 but it\u2019s also not a bad album in and of itself.<\/p>\n
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If someone wanted to hear where Nelson got his start, there could be some interest in And Then I Wrote<\/i>. But, while it\u2019s a pleasant enough way to whittle away 30 minutes, it\u2019s not the greatest album in the country music genre. It\u2019s not the greatest album in Nelson\u2019s vast discography. That all said, if you\u2019re into the history of country music and its artists, it\u2019s worth a spin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6148],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-46622","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-willie-nelson","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46622"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46622"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}