By 1971, Willie Nelson had divorced his second wife, Shirley Collie, and lost his Tennesse home, along with a collection of demos, to a fire two years earlier, wherein he also saved a pound of weed and his beloved guitar Trigger.
Following a string of personal and professional strains, Nelson started working on his 13th album, Yesterday’s Wine, his first of three concept albums, including Phases and Stages (1974) and Red Headed Stranger (1975). Leaving Tennessee after the fire and returning to Texas, Nelson wrote the album at his Happy Valley Dude Ranch in Bandera.
Yesterday’s Wine explored themes of faith (“In God’s Eyes,” “Family Bible”) and mortality through the closing “Goin’ Home” and contemplating one’s life. Though the album only peaked at No. 62 on the Country chart, it was a significant stop for Nelson, of reflection, stripping back all the glitz of the Nashville music scene he grew to disdain that ultimately led to the outlaw movement.
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“Yesterday’s Wine”
The title track reads like a conversation between Nelson and his own ghost, reflecting on his life and times and how everyone is aging like “Yesterday’s Wine.”
Miracles appear
In the strangest of places
Fancy meeting you here
The last time I saw you
Was just out of Houston
Sit down let me buy you a beer
Your presence is welcome
With me and my friend here
This is a hangout of mine
We come here quite often
And listen to music
Partaking of yesterday’s wine
Yesterday’s wine
I’m yesterday’s wine
Aging with time
Like yesterday’s wine
Yesterday’s wine
We’re yesterday’s wine
Aging with time
Like yesterday’s wine
You give the appearance
Of one widely travelled
I’ll bet you’ve seen
Things in your time
So sit down beside me
And tell me your story
If you think you’re like yesterday’s wine
‘A Taste of Yesterday’s Wine’
In 1982, George Jones and Merle Haggard recorded a duet of “Yesterday’s Wine,” which inspired the title of their duet album, A Taste of Yesterday’s Wine. The song went to No. 1 and spent 10 weeks on the Country chart.
Nearly 20 years later, Jones re-recorded “Yesterday’s Wine” with Jamey Johnson and southern rockers Blackberry Smoke for the band’s 2009 album Little Piece of Dixie. “I was talking to Jamey one day, and I said, ‘We should go record ‘Yesterday’s Wine,’” recalled Blackberry Smoke’s Charlie Starr. “‘We can do it like George and Merle did it.”
Then, the band’s manager, Trey Wilson, threw a curve ball at them and said they should get Jones in to record. I didn’t believe he’d do it until he walked through the door…I mean, in walks the greatest country singer that’s ever lived.”
By the time Jones and his Nancy arrived at the studio, they played the version they finished recording for the country legend. “That’s country music right there,” said Jones.
“I can’t even describe it,” added Starr. “He didn’t have to be coached. He sang lower than Jamey and I and higher than us. It was crazy.”
Everything happened so fast, but the moment left the band with a memory that lasted a lifetime. “It was intimidating, to say the least, as he was the world’s greatest country singer,” said Starr. “But he was very gracious and a jolly fellow. We got the work done quickly. It all happened really quickly. I wish that it had lasted longer, actually, but it was just one afternoon, and then he finished it and said ‘Goodbye.’”
Several years before Jones died in 2013, Starr joined him onstage at the Ryman Auditorium for a performance of “Yesterday’s Wine.”
Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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