10 Essential Willie Nelson albums

It is a bittersweet month for the country music world, as we mourn the loss of the genre's greatest singer, George Jones, but we celebrated the 80th birthday of the genre's greatest entertainer, Willie Nelson on April 30th. The pair took two divergent paths in their careers and life choices - George playing the role of the "King" in Nashville while drinking his life away, while Willie skipped town and went to Austin, Texas, to escape the corporate banality of the mainstream country music business, and found his mind-altering pleasure in the hemp fields. But as divergent as their legacies may be, they both stood tall in the highest echelons of country music.

There have been multiple detailed biographies written about Willie, and if you want his life story you can find one of those (hint: his various autobiographies are the best - hilarious jokes and fascinating stories). But what really matters to Willie is his music, so here is a very limited rundown of what I consider his "essential" recordings. Granted, when an artist of Willie's talent puts out well over 100 albums, it's next to impossible to generate a "top ten" that will have unanimous agreement. Nevertheless, if I could only take 10 Willie Nelson albums with me to live on Mars, here they are, in chronological order:

And Then I Wrote (1962) - Willie's debut album was a landmark in showcasing the utter brilliance of his songwriting, with such future iconic tunes as "Crazy," "Hello Walls," and "Funny How Time Slips Away."