Willie's Fourth

[Bob Of Burleson]

Review:
Willie Nelson’s 4th of July
Picnic at Billy Bob’s Texas

By Preston Jones
pjones@dfw.com

Watching Willie Nelson, but remembering Robert Earl Keen: “The road goes on forever/And the party never ends.”

Nelson took a crack at the tune way back in 1995 on the Highwaymen record of the same name, but Friday, at the 41st annual 4th of July Picnic that bears his name, the lyric took on a deeper, more resonant meaning.

Nelson turned 81 in April, and early in his 75-minute set on the North Forty Friday, he sounded it.

His voice, on the eternal opening one-two punch of Whiskey River and Still Is Still Moving , sounded mottled with something: phlegm, emotion, age.

But as he loosened up, so did the performance.

By the night’s emotional centerpiece — a vivid, poignant reading of Pearl Jam’s Just Breathe with his son, Lukas, whose voice seemed to catch on the line “Hold me ‘til I die” as fireworks glittered on Fort Worth’s skyline — Nelson and Trigger were in fine form, leading the familiar faces (Mickey Raphael, Bobbie Nelson and even Fort Worth native Paul English, one of three drummers on stage) through a set list spanning the decades between Nite Life, Crazy and Beer For My Horses.

That Nelson and his musical compatriots have sustained the picnic for over four decades is remarkable. Not every year is a pitch perfect collection of talent — last year’s 40th anniversary picnic set an unfairly high bar to clear this year — but whatever else transpires over the course of a usually scorching hot day in the Fort Worth Stockyards, there’s always the hesitant then firm opening chords of Whiskey River and the bandanna-clad troubadour to pluck ‘em.

While it would be nice if life were like that Robert Earl Keen classic, the party will, eventually, draw to a close, as evidenced by recent months and the toll taken on Nashville’s legends, most notably the loss of picnic fixture Ray Price last year.

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