Reviews: Willie Nelson, Kurt Vile, Don Williams, Kip Moore, Violet Grohl, Joshua Ray Walker

★★★★

By the official Texas Monthly tally, Dream Chaser is the 156th album Willie Nelson has released in his lifetime. I’d wager Willie and family have several dozen completed records tucked away in the vault, waiting for the day when Nelson is no longer able to make new music. That day is still somewhere over the horizon, so Willie is doing what he always does: he’s moving forward, cutting records with his longtime partner Buddy Cannon, playing concerts when he can. He spent last year singing the songs of his friends—he made a handsome tribute to Rodney Crowell and a killer salute to Merle Haggard—which means it’s time for a collection largely devoted to originals. Nelson co-wrote six of the ten songs on Dream Chaser, working constantly with his longtime collaborator Buddy Cannon and sometimes with other authors, too. One of those co-writers is Bob Dylan, who comes aboard for “I Can’t Read Your Mind,” a lazy ballad that opens with “I don’t know how to read your mind/The letters are too small,” a casually clever couplet that feels like it’s been around for ages. Most of the songs on Dream Chaser sound like they’ve been kicking around for a while, an impression enhanced by the album concluding with an elegant rendition of Peanut Montgomery’s “Developing My PIctures,” cut many, many years ago by George Jones for Musicor. They also sound familiar because Willie and his band don’t stretch themselves as much as lay back, enjoying their own easy roll. There’s a comfort in their chemistry and in the sturdiness of the songs: there may be no unexpected twists in the rollicking “After All” or the lovely “We’d Make a Good Movie,” but the satisfaction comes from the songs hitting their marks with precision. Nelson marvels at his ability to still write new tunes, singing on the title track how a song came to him in a flash last night, leading him to “wonder if there’ll be another, then another comes around.” Another song comes around, leading to another album, then the cycle starts once again. One day, this circle will be broken. The knowledge of that inevitably, which Nelson never mentions outright, lends a bit of a poignancy to Dream Chaser: it may be just another good Willie Nelson album but it’s a wonder that he’s still making them at the age of 93.

★★★★

My mind tends to wander when it comes to Kurt Vile, the self-appointed torchbearer for indie slackerdom. Not that he’s ever intended to grab a listener’s attention. Vile prefers to drift, getting lost within his own shaggy riffs, as he shrugs punchlines and spins out guitar lines that last too long to coalesce into a solo.