34. Ray Price — Night Life (1962)

1. Spotify is inexplicably missing two of the tracks here, including the title song. Which is a real damn shame since I didn’t realize that when I first listened, and this album opens with a delightful spoken word introduction thanking the listener for the nice reception of their last album and prepping them to relax and have a good time with this one. It sets the tone and place of the album in a way that I didn’t catch the first time listening through. It’s a time machine.
2. That first track is also a general bluesy delight, the kind of track I’d be thrilled to hear in a Nashville bar drinking bourbon into the wee hours of the night. And it was written by Willie Nelson, who evidently used to be in Price’s band before a falling out after nelson shot one of Price’s roosters. What a world.
3. The rest of the album from there works really well as part of a whole. I’m not sure if this is intended as a concept album, but it captures late night melancholy incredibly well. Would I come back and listen to individual tracks on repeat? Probably not. But if I owned a bar, I might toss the whole thing on sometime.

One Essential Song:

Listen on Spotify (caveat: you’re missing the two tracks):