Win a copy of Legend-The Best Of Willie Nelson

2 months ago 19th Apr 10:14

FemaleFirst are giving you the chance to win a copy of Legend-The Best Of Willie Nelson

Sony-BMG, released 12 May 2008 As part of Sony-BMG’s celebration of Willie Nelson’s 75th Birthday (on April 30), a special 20-track Best Of CD will be released at the same time as he returns for UK tour dates.

Willie Nelson is widely recognized as an American icon, although his distinctive music and other social and political activities sometimes take a backseat to his pop-culture public image - firmly grounded in the acknowledged reality of his life.

Nelson's albums have sold millions. Stardust, his 1978 cover collection of the pop hits of his youth, exceeds 5 million in sales, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. Three others have sold 4 million copies each, along with two double-platinum albums and nine platinum albums.

The 74 year old singer/songwriter/actor/activist is one of the most recognisable superstars of country music. Many of Nelson's songs became hits for some of country and pop music's biggest stars of the time. These songs include "Funny How Time Slips Away" (Billy Walker), "Hello Walls" (Faron Young), and most famously, "Crazy" (Patsy Cline).

All of these songs, and many more, feature on this new collection.

How Old Is Willie Nelson?

ONE HELL OF A RIDE BOX SET

The ultimate retrospective of the Outlaw Country godfather’s best-loved and most important recordings from 1954-2007, including 100 songs from all phases and labels of Willie’s career

Legacy Recordings is celebrating Willie Nelson's 75th birthday (April 30th) with the release of ONE HELL OF A RIDE, a monumental 4-CD, 100-song retrospective covering all phases of Nelson's 50-plus years of barrier-breaking pop and country music. The set will be released on May 5 on Columbia/Legacy, a division of SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT.

ONE HELL OF A RIDE makes available, for the first time in any collection, recordings and performances drawn from the entire range, and all record labels, of Willie Nelson's mythic career.

With a whopping 100 selections in all, the box set includes rare early recordings -- including "When I've Sang My Last Hillbilly Song," recorded late 1954/early 1955 at KBOP Studio in Pleasanton, Texas, and "No Place For Me," recorded in 1957 in Portland, Oregon, for Willie Nelson Records. Also featured are Willie's own early 1960s performances of "Night Life," "Funny How Time Slips Away" and "Crazy,” the much-covered songs that broke down the walls between Tin Pan Alley and country music; his mid-1960s recordings for RCA Victor when he forged his own signature blend of country-rock with currents of jazz, swing and deep folk influences; his 1970s invention of "outlaw country" with the multi-platinum country/pop crossover blockbuster "Red Headed Stranger; his historic collaborations with Waylon Jennings, Chet Atkins, Roger Miller, Ray Price, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Julio Iglesias, and many more; and a generous selection of Willie's classic covers including his signature interpretations of Fred Neil's "Everybody's Talkin'," Fred Rose's "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain," Townes Van Zandt's "Pancho & Lefty," Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust" and "Georgia On My Mind," and others.

The deluxe 4-CD box set includes revelatory liner notes by Joe Nick Patoski, who has written about Willie Nelson over the past thirty five years for many US publications and his biography, Willie Nelson: An Epic Life, is published later this year.

In addition to ONE HELL OF RIDE, Legacy Recordings will celebrate Willie’s 75th with a single CD Legend – The Best Of Willie Nelson.