This was the follow up to Shotgun Willie, and was a commercial and critical breakthrough as Nelson moved away from RCA (with two albums on Atlantic in between) and into the Outlaw Country phase. At Columbia he got the creative control he’d been after.

It’s an early concept album with a continuous story running through Willie Nelson originals and some covers. There was actually a 1986 movie starring Willie as the Red Headed Stranger – it’s on YouTube or Amazon Prime (via Freevee) free but with ads.

I love this version of “Blue Eyes Crying In the Rain”

My copy is from the Vinyl Me Please Anthology The Story of Willie Nelson, on tan vinyl.