Long considered one of the most powerful voices in roots and blues, going back as far as her Mother Earth days in the early seventies in a career that began in 1964, Tracy Nelson harnesses her many relationships and musical preferences into a career-defining album, filled with songs she’s been aching to do for some time. With her history of roots and blues albums, her career is now in its sixth decade and she can draw on her experiences making records in Chicago, Austin, New Orleans, and Nashville, the latter of which is the base for most of Life Don’t Miss Nobody. In all, eight studios were involved as she and co-producer Roger Alan Nichols pulled it together.
If you’ve followed Nelson’s career at all, you can probably guess the guest names on this musical self-portrait. Surely, she invites her pals Irma Thomas and Marcia Ball aboard. Veterans Willie Nelson and Charlie Musselwhite join as well as Mickey Raphael and blues stalwarts Terry Hanck and Jontavious Willis. Nelson claims to have played with every musician and singer on the record except keyboardist Kevin McKendree, who does his typical brilliant job. The musicians are mostly a core of Music City session veterans including bassist Byron House, guitarists Mike Henderson and Larry Chaney, drummer John Gardner and pianists McKendree and Steve Conn. Bolstering these musicians is a horn section on one track, a few other instruments, and a host of vocalists. The songs ring like The Great American Songbook of Roots and Blues songs from as early as Stephen Foster to Ma Rainey, Hank Williams, Sonny Boy Williamson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Willie Dixon, Allen Toussaint, Doc Pomus, Chuck Berry, and Gene McDaniels with two originals. Some are very familiar, others less so.
Interestingly Foster’s “Hard Times” appears twice on the album, one version with a full band and the closer with Nelson going solo, accompanied by her 12-string guitar which she plays on both versions, the first time she’s played guitar on an album since her 1964 Prestige debut, Deep Are the Roots. Two other standouts are the originals. Nelson penned the title track with her life partner, Mike Dysinger, and sings about the transitory nature of life, inspired in a negative way by the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and catastrophic weather in recent years. Somehow there is a glimmer of reassurance in lyrics such as “The world has a way of taking back its toys.” Her other original is a co-write with Marcia Ball – “Where Do You Go (When You Can’t Go Home).” The genesis of the song came after an argument with a soon-to-be ex, but Ball turned it into a gospel-like anthem about Katrina. The song continues to have relevance for so many displaced by wars, storms, and fires. So, together with “Hard Times” these two originals form a central theme to the album. In short, we need to be resilient.
A sure highlight is her duet with Willie Nelson on Hank Williams’ “Honky Tonkin’.” While Willie is famous for his unique phrasing, Tracy was proud of getting as close to his phrasing as she did. The core Nashville band opens with Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s “Strange Things Happening Every Day,” clearly as relevant now as when it was written. An all-male chorus of Gardner, House, Henderson, and McKendree shine on the choruses and McKendree’s barrelhouse piano is the driving force along with Henderson’s guitar framing Nelson’s booming vocal. Doc Pomus’ “There Is Always One More Time” features harmonicist Mickey Raphael and a mixed chorus of four background on this ballad which speaks directly to the overriding themes of perseverance and resilience.
The other tracks fall mostly into classic blues as Nelson duets with Jontavious Willis, who also plays a stinging resonator, on Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Your Funeral and My Trial,” reaches back in vintage sounds for Ma Rainey’s “Yonder Comes the Blues,” and invites her longtime pal Charlie Musselwhite to play his harp and sing on Willie Dixon’s “It Don’t Make Sense.” Nelson’s natural feel for the blues is so authentic and genuine, that she seamlessly crosses these eras and styles with the common instrumental thread being McKendree’s remarkable piano playing.
Nelson sings with her friends Marcia Ball and Irma Thomas on the NOLA flavored “I Did My Part,” replete with a three-piece horn section and again on Berry’s “Brown-Eyed Handsome Man” where they are joined also on backgrounds by Reba Russell and Diane Davidson. The one outlier for this writer, aside from demonstrating Nelson’s breathtaking range of material, is Gene McDaniels’ “Compared to What” featuring Terry Hanck on tenor. Sorry, but no version will have the impact of the Les McCann/Eddie Harris version, no matter how well Nelson sings it. With that arguable misstep aside, the album is still career defining with her iconic voice in great shape and excellent production values. It will likely be cited on many year-end best lists.
