THE YEAR WAS 1975 WHEN AMERICAN country music singer-songwriter, author, poet, actor, activist, philanthropist, and badass guitarist Willie Nelson—who for years had been fighting record labels that discouraged his desire to record his songs devoid of the schmaltzy string arrangements and over-production values that pervaded popular country music of the day—finally put his foot down and got his way. The result was country’s first concept album, Red Headed Stranger, which marked Nelson’s move from RCA to Columbia Records, and presented for the first time Willie’s songs, along with select covers arranged in a narrative form and stripped down to their essentials with his trusty, well-worn Martin N-20 nylon-string acoustic soulmate, Trigger, mixed front and center.
OUTLAW COUNTRY
The album’s opening track, “Time of the Preacher,” recently featured on the AMC TV…