Teatro

Teatro

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
The first words from Willie Nelson's lips, "The sun is filled with ice and gives no warmth at all / the sky was never blue," warn the listener something is happening here. In a converted Mexican movie theater, producer Daniel Lanois surrounds the 65-year-old Nelson with the most startling and assured musical vision of his career: lush, rippling guitars, and swelling, splashing drum tracks, doubled and tripled over, sometimes in a Latin mood. Lanois allows Nelson freedom to solo in and around his sonic dreamwork, and with the presence of longtime fellow travelers Mickey Raphael, Emmylou Harris, and sister Bobbie, the record clearly smacks of Nelson's style and lyrical vision. The original material is decades old, but little known, and generally as haunting as Lanois's arrangements. (Only one song should have remained in the vaults: the emotionally-curdled "I Just Can't Let You Say Good-Bye.") So much could have gone wrong on this pairing. It's a thrill to hear how much truly goes right. --Roy Francis Kasten

Entertainment Weekly
[Nelson's] Texas-rooted sound has always had a south-of-the-border tinge, which [producer Daniel] Lanois accentuates with Teatro's bubbling percussion.