Crazy!
Welcome to Uncut Greats! We’re the latest addition to the Uncut family of music titles.
In this new magazine we’re taking what you might call a greatest hits approach – offering all the quality and expertise you’d expect from Uncut, while cutting straight to the chase. Like it says on the cover: the life story, the greatest recordings, the Uncut version. And the Greats? They’re our personal pantheon of classic artists, who just happen to have made some of history’s finest music.
This month, a few days before he turns 93, our cover star is Willie Nelson. Inside we’ll be providing a countdown of Willie’s 20 greatest albums, as voted for (and reviewed) by Uncut’s team of experts. We’ll be telling his incredible life story: from changing country music, to his battles with the IRS and his status as a cannabis icon. And we’ll be zooming in to provide extra detail on periods of interest from our own investigations.
This issue we’ll hear from Willie himself in a couple of recent encounters with Uncut. In one, he answers burning questions from Uncut’s readership. In another, he welcomes us on to his tourbus to celebrate his legend while experiencing his humility. In another extensive read, we hear about the birth of Outlaw country, when under Willie’s stewardship, country music became as dangerous as the protagonists in its songs. Never mind Nashville. At a hippie venue in Austin, Texas Willie was presiding at a genuine gathering of the tribes.
“The Armadillo was one of those places where the hippies would show up no matter who was playing,” says Texan singer-songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard. “Willie came out, and the hippies found themselves standing next to the rednecks, where outside of that venue they would not have gotten along. It was cross-pollination.”
What Willie had arrived at was legendary status – and what it afforded him was something unheard of in the once-staid word of country. He now, in his early 40s, finally had creative control. Over 50 years and 100+ albums later, he’s still out there enjoying that freedom to do exactly as he pleases.
Enjoy the magazine. It’s in shops now, or you can get one here.