Well, seems like only yesterday when I reviewed Willie Nelson’s last album, Borderline, an excellent set from the man’s ninth decade, and now here comes Last Leaf on the Tree, a consummate set that’s at a higher level.
It opens with Tom Waits’ title song, with producer and multi-instrumentalist Micah Nelson, Willie’s son, ensuring that Trigger, Nelson’s much-travelled guitar, gets plenty of room to roam. The sound palette is spare, with the limpid clarity of 1990s peaks Spirit or Teatro, and as they are among Nelson’s great albums, that means a lot. It was largely recorded together in a room, too, at Hen House in Venice California, adding to its lived-in feel.
Aside from some questionable effects on the vocal of “If it Wasn't Broken”, this is a stunning set, and a step change from his decade or so of collaboration with Buddy Cannon. It’s adventurous and experimental sonically, astute in its choice of songs, and brilliant in terms of Nelson’s delivery as a singer and a player. His voice sounds stronger, if not ageless, in comparison to The Border, and his guitar work is a joy.
As a listener, you may bring your own pensive thoughts to these recordings of an aged artist passing through his twilight years towards somewhere out of focus, but there it is, we can see it coming. It’s coming to all of us Love, betrayal, time and death, and reflections on all these, seed the performances across Last Leaf on the Tree with unearthly powers. And Willie’s one of those people that makes you just want to listen.
In terms of song selection, is a heady cocktail, but he doesn’t spill a drop – mixing up Waits with Beck, the Flaming Lips, Nina Simone, Keith Richards, Neil Young and Warren Zevon – as well as young LA folk-punk singer Sunny War, whose “If It Wasn’t Broken” fits the man like a favourite boot.
A Lanois-like atmospheric swirls behind a steady-state cover of Keith Richards’ excellent “Robbed Blind” from his Cross Eyed Heart album. Lanois, indeed, plays pedal steel across the album, while Doors drummer John Densmore is a surprising presence, with Senegalese percussionist Magatte Sow, joining the Nelsons and stalwart Mickey Raphael on harmonica.
A second Waits song, “House Where Nobody Lives”, from Mule Variations, is an album highlight, while Neil Young’s “Are You Ready For the Country” stages a loose-limbed takeover, and both Zevon’s “Keep Me In Your Heart”, featuring Nikita Sorokin’s heartbreaker of a violin part, and The Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realise” are exceedingly tender cuts served blue, if not raw.
Micah’s own “Wheels” could be a response to “On the Road Again” but with added freight, while his co-write with Dad on “Silence is Golden” is a sweet new Zen koan in song, and a new recording of Willie’s 1967 song, “The Ghost,” closes a set that walks through walls and drips with spirit and haunts to the finish, standing in the dark singing “funny how time slips away” under its breath. That there’s unexpected coda to follow that Ghost – some layered electronica and a guitar-and-vocal number called “Looking For Trouble” – very, very funny and very Willie Nelson – suggests the story is far from over.
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