Track Listing

1. Rainy Day Blues
2. Songbird
3. Blue Hotel
4. Back To Earth
5. Stella Blue
6. Hallelujah
7. $ 1000 Wedding
8. We Don't Run
9. Yours Love
10. Sad Songs And Waltzes
11. Amazing Grace

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #31305 in Music
• Released on: 2006-10-30
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .13 pounds
• Running time: 44 minutes

CD Description
'Songbird' sees country music icon Nelson teaming up with prolific singer-songwriter Ryan Adams to create an album of original material and cover versions. Produced by Adams - with his band The Cardinals as Nelson's backing band - 'Songbird' boasts a more electric sound than Nelson's previous album, largely due to the influence of the North Carolina-born alt-country star. Recorded in New York, the album includes a diverse collection of covers, including tracks originally recorded by Leonard Cohen, Gram Parsons and the Grateful Dead.

Customer Reviews

Potential album of the year ??
I was suprised to see that a review had yet to be posted for this album. So I just had to offer my thoughts and urge more of you to buy this.
If you think Dylan had presented us with the album of 2006, then have a listen to Willie's latest offering before you cast your vote. Believe me, this is a revelation.
Year after recent year, Willie has delivered fine albums of contrasting styles, however, this partnership with Ryan Adams & The Cardinals brings us his best work to date.
The rough, yet loose, electric feel presents a different side to Willie. Check out the cover of 'Stella Blue' for example. On first listen it may come across as ragged and a tad messy, yet give it another spin and the track comes into a world of its own. I doubt you will hear a better cover version this year. There again, if you do, it's likely to be on this album.
As for new material, there is some of that on show too. The pick of the bunch has to be the wonderful 'Blue Hotel'.
Should Willie & Ryan decide to hang around with each other a while longer, then I for one won't complain.
A partnership to rival Cash/Rubin? Potentially. Just give us another album asap.

More Music from Prolific Country Superstar - but a mixed bag!
You could never call Willie Nelson a slacker. In the last couple of years he released a straight country album ("It Always Will Be"), an album of reggae tracks, a CD in tribute to Western Swing writer Cindy Walker ("You Don't Know Me" - my choice of album of the year), acted in and recorded songs for a couple of films, and released a single about gay cowboys. And he continues to tour almost endlessly. Pretty good for a guy in his 70s!

And here's another new CD, this time in the company of Ryan Adams and the Cardinals. I found this album much more difficult to like than the other material Willie has released in recent years - there's nothing wrong with it, it's just different. Not knowing the work of Ryan Adams, it's tempting to assume it's different due to his (Adams) influence.

It is mainly an album of covers, with a few old Willie songs and two new songs, but not knowing the originals mean that it is basically all new material to me! Some I like very much - the opening "Rainy Day Blues" is a lot of fun, and Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" sounds just great, with old friend Mickey Raphael popping up and a girly chorus joining in at the end (reminding me strongly of 70s Bob Dylan). But others do nothing for me - title track "Songbird" comes and goes quickly and doesn't really do very much, and the Grateful Dead track "Stella Blue" is unlike any Willie Nelson song I've ever heard: not sure whether I like it or not.

I do enjoy the old Willie songs, and the new songs written by him and Adams, both strong songs that hark back to Willie's earlier works. I also very much enjoy the version of "Amazing Grace" - very moody, and sung to the tune of "House of the Rising Sun" unless my ears decieve me!

So a mixed bag - probably a CD I will skip through in years to come rather than listen to it all.

One major complaint though. Why no song credits on the sleeve? I can understand the lack of lyrics, but if like me you don't know the originals you might never know they're cover versions.

Willie's back and he's got company.
I don't know how he does it, but he does it so well. Most artists half his age struggle to produce the volume of albums that Willie does and for his 2006 album Willie pairs up with Ryan Adams and his band The Cardinals to produce something special.

What we get is an album of mostly well known songs sung with Nelson's usually laid back worn vocal style and accompanied by the excellent country stylings of the Cardinals, a combination that works well.

Standout songs include the title track 'Songbird,' a Fleetwood Mac classic made all the more famous in recent years by the late Eva Cassidy. '$[...] Wedding,' sung by the late Gram Parsons, 'Sad Songs and Waltzes,' by the late Keith Whitley and the album rounds off with a great version of 'Amazing Grace.'

Throughout Willie sounds as fresh as ever and the band sounds brilliant and with Ryan at the helm on production, the whole package speaks quality.

Ryan Adams is a big fan of Willie Nelson and a lot of his earlier work especially with Whiskeytown and his first solo effort Heartbreaker seem to reflect this. More recently his album Jacksonville City Nights had a cover version of one of Willie's most famous covers, 'You Were Always On My Mind.'

All in all Willie Nelson and the Cardinals is a great thing and I would like to see another release of this calibre from them, maybe even a duet (or two) from Willie and Ryan.

Songbird is a great addition to any record collection.