Phases and Stages

Country artists rarely viewed their albums as more than a few singles backed with standard issue covers or lesser tunes from the songwriters’ pen. But Willie Nelson had always been a prolific songwriter whose cover choices were smart and tailored to his approach. He rarely wasted a song. With 1974’s *Phases and Stages*, he offered up a concept album where each song played into the overriding theme. Divided in two — side one and side two, naturally — the album presents a dissolving marriage from each person’s perspective. Nelson brings strong voice to each side of these emotionally loaded tunes. “Pretend I Never Happened,” “I Still Can’t Believe You’re Gone” and “It’s Not Supposed To Be This Way” are top-drawer Willie, brooding and devastating, using standard country changes but with extra gravitas weighing things down. “Sister’s Coming Home/ Down at the Corner Beer Joint,” on the other hand, manages to work up a honky-tonk head of steam despite its downward spiral. Coming just behind his landmark *Red Headed Stranger* release, *Phases and Stages* is one of Nelson’s often overlooked gems.

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If Shotgun Willie played a bit like a concept album, Phases and Stages was a full-blown one, tracing the dissolution of a marriage and devoting one side to the wife's perspective, the second to the husband's.