Willie Nelson Discoveries

An artist like Willie Nelson is simply too big to be bound by just one Essentials playlist. That's why we've worked our way even deeper into his world — to bring you these overlooked but equally important discoveries. Find out what makes country music's original outlaw tick when he tackles his own honky-tonk hero Lefty Frizzell's "I Love You a Thousand Ways," revealing the inspiration for his suave, jazzy phrasing. Speaking of jazzy, what kind of Texan would Willie be without a love of Western swing, proudly displayed on his ramble through Spade Cooley's 1945 smash "Shame On You," backed by cowboy-jazz torchbearers Asleep At the Wheel. And if you're sure you've heard the definitive version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," hold up, because Willie's the only one in Cohen's league when it comes to gravitas.

Willie's powerful pen comes into focus when you step into the deep end of his super-powered songbook, in Next Steps.

Willie Nelson has such a stellar stockpile of country standards to his credit it's hard to imagine there are still more waiting to be discovered. But that restless pen of his has cranked out so many classics, even we had a hard time keeping track. The hard-luck troubadour at the heart of "Sad Songs and Waltzes" was probably pretty close to the bone for Willie when he was struggling to kick-start his career in the '60s. The red-headed stranger's "Undo the Wrong" — written with Hank Cochran — was a 1968 hit single for Johnny Bush, but listening to Willie's own version is like boarding a one-way elevator to honky-tonk heaven. And it takes a true hard-country heavyweight like Willie to single out the "Three Days" of loneliness he dreads as "yesterday, today, and tomorrow."

Follow Willie's journey into jazz, pop, and posterity, in Deep Cuts.

Willie has covered so much ground in his five-decades-and-counting career that sometimes it's almost possible to forget his home base is country music. His jazz standards album Stardust was a game-changing grand slam that spurred legions of pop, rock, and country artists to make similar moves, but it also contained Willie's take on the '60s pop-soul smash "Unchained Melody," where he slyly sneaks up on the tune instead of bashing it into the ground like some other singers. One listen to Nelson's Nashville-ized '60s take on the Tin Pan Alley chestnut "Am I Blue?" will show Stardust fans that Willie was swinging years before it became fashionable. But when you realize how many years of amazing music he's given us, only Willie's own "Yesterday's Wine" can describe how he's ripened with age.

When you're honoring an artist of Willie Nelson's magnitude, the question isn't "which songs did you put in?" but "which ones did you leave out?" Capturing every awesome nugget in his discography would take several lifetimes, but we can at least lead you to some of the monumental moments you might have missed on your first pass. Here's where you'll find the country kingpin hitting his stride alongside the likes of Waylon Jennings, Wynton Marsalis, and Sheryl Crow, sidling up to some Western swing, weary blues, and glorious gospel tunes, and pulling some secret masterpieces out of his own songbook and those of Lefty Frizzell, Gram Parsons, and Bob Dylan. Step right up for a family-size portion of lost classics from Willie's wide canon.