Rating:
Genre:
Country
Release Date: 04/12/2005
It's for a good cause and all, but it's hard not to look at
Willie Nelson's 2005
Songs for Tsunami Relief and see either the umpteenth live
Willie and friends LP, or at the very least, what seems to be the tenth album
Nelson has released in a calendar year. Actually, it's merely the fifth album since May 2004 to be billed to
Nelson, and this isn't as much a proper
Willie Nelson album as it is a various-artists record sold on his name, since he's the biggest star here. He headlined the benefit concert assembled by
Texas Monthly writer
Michael Hall, whose idea was to showcase Austin's finest musicians from
Willie and fellow
country outlaws like
Joe Ely and
Alejandro Escovedo, all the way down to celebrated indie rockers
Spoon.
Hall mentions in his liner notes that these kind of benefit shows are a bit of a tradition in Austin, and the performances have a nice, comfortable familiarity, giving the music a warm, appealing vibe. It also means that apart from
Spoon's rather incongruous appearance between
Escovedo and
Kelly Willis, there's nothing all that surprising here, either in sound or song selection, but that's par for the course with benefit albums: the intent is to lure listeners, not to alienate them. And for anybody that's a fan of Austin's ever-fertile roots music scene, there's something to enjoy here -- maybe not enough to listen to the record often, but how many benefit albums are designed for frequent play anyway? In all likelihood,
Songs for Tsunami Relief is not an album that will be played much by whomever purchases it -- the music is good, but not remarkable -- yet the record is entertaining on that first listen and, besides, it's for a good cause and all.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
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