Golden Oldies: Willie and Leon

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO —  Willie Nelson is so craggy and furrowed and trail-bitten under his trademark bandanna that you might think he once rode with Kit Carson or Buffalo Bill.

Leon Russell’s thick mane and beard of white are now of patriarchal proportions. He looks like a good candidate to be cast as Methuselah in a biblical epic.

Nelson, 62, and Russell, 54, are old friends who recorded an album together in 1979 but who on Monday night at the Coach House got around to playing their first concert as a duo--not counting occasional onstage cameos over the years.

Their early show was indeed redolent of rocking chairs, but in the very best way possible. Perhaps the most heartening and exciting thing to come out of this special evening of rich, varied and utterly informal and uncalculating music-making was that these two beyond-grizzled veterans each offered striking new original material.

Nelson and Russell had taken the gig--two shows on Monday and two more scheduled for Tuesday--on barely a week’s notice, and they played the opening night without benefit of rehearsal.

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That off-the-cuff approach showed in some tentative moments early on. But Nelson, the wiry little Country Music Hall of Famer from Texas, and Russell, the lanky Oklahoman known chiefly for his pop ballads and gospel-inflected rock ‘n’ roll hits of the ‘70s, soon warmed to the intimate surroundings and to each other.

“I see panic on [Russell’s] face at this moment, but it’ll work out. I promise,” Nelson said at the start, as he settled in at center stage with his guitar. Russell, for whom the Coach House is a regular tour stop, sat behind a digital piano at stage right.

Nelson, who has headlined at Anaheim Stadium and the Pacific Amphitheatre but had never played a club date in Orange County, was the reason the house was packed at $50 per ticket. The spotlight as lead singer and soloist fell mainly to him.

At first, the old friends failed to connect during an opening sequence of country standards Nelson wrote more than 30 years ago--”Funny How Time Slips Away,” “Crazy” and “Night Life.” Russell misfired badly with his first chance to grab the packed house of about 500.

He was clearly pressing as he delivered “A Song for You” with a harsh, grating bark. And although the show’s promise lay in the chance to see two soulful, versatile and traditionally grounded musicians interact without slickness and artificiality, Russell saw fit to undercoat most songs with a tinny-sounding string synthesizer.

These annoyances quickly passed. Before long, Nelson was burrowing deeply into his dark, Spanish-hued ballad, “I Never Cared for You.” Then somebody requested that old Willie warhorse, “Whiskey River,” and Russell made it sound fresh by lending it a delightful, romping New Orleans second-line piano rhythm. Nelson responded with vigorous blues licks on his beat-up gut string guitar, and it was obvious that the two had found their footing.

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Nelson then summoned his frequent sidekick, harmonica player Mickey Raphael. For the final hour or so, his mellow and honeyed harp playing filled out the sound and provided a more suitably organic way of doing it than those ill-advised strings-in-a-box. Nelson also put Raphael up to singing the old-time rag, “Fishing Blues,” with offhandedly charming results.

Charting their course according to audience requests, or just proceeding by the seat of their pants, Nelson and Russell strung together a long and fully satisfying sequence of songs that had the in-the-moment and for-the-moment impact of music played just for the feeling and pleasure of it.

When it fell to Russell to call a tune, he skipped his own hits. Rather than do “Tight Rope,” “Delta Lady” or “Superstar” (the oft-recorded Russell composition most recently done by alternative rockers Sonic Youth as a tribute to the Carpenters), he went for gospel or country standards.

These included an energized, call-and-response duet with Nelson on “Amazing Grace,” rollicking duet-vocal takes on “I Saw the Light,” “I’m Movin’ On” and “Rollin’ in My Sweet Baby’s Arms,” a jaunty run through “Heartbreak Hotel” and a gruff-but-tender “Waltz Across Texas.”

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Russell’s new song, “Unforgiven,” was a prayerful dirge in which his breaking voice brought to life a dread-filled longing for spiritual redemption.

Nelson’s picks were mainly his hits, but they were hardly routine run-throughs. In this unadorned, up-close setting, we saw how exquisitely Nelson can capture a moment’s reverie tinged by powerful emotion.

With “Always on My Mind”--a glowing rendition--and “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground,” the idiosyncratic, almost erratic timing that is his trademark as a singer and a guitarist allowed him to burrow into the workings of a mind that is flowing with memories pumped up from the heart, with all the irregular, fluttering pulses a heart is prone to when it relives great love and great loss.

Nelson was in fine voice and filled the evening with unpredictable guitar playing that was a mixture of sweet lyricism and gutsy, sudden jabbing, helping him refresh such oldies as “On the Road Again” and “Red Headed Stranger.”

His two new, original songs brimmed with promise for an artistic renaissance following recent releases that have looked backward or been filled with outside material.

“Waiting Forever for You” had the same quality of open-hearted reflection as some of Nelson’s signature ballads. “We Don’t Run, We Don’t Compromise” had the vigor and forthright idealism of a rally-the-people folk broadside by Woody Guthrie.

These signs boded well for “Spirit,” an album dominated by new, original songs that Nelson will release in February. The new album will be stark and simple, using only guitar, piano and violin, and from the quality unveiled Monday night, it doesn’t seem unrealistic to hope for an artistic high point like the one Johnny Cash reached in 1994 with his back-to-basics album, “American Recordings.”

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As for the performing partnership between Nelson and Russell, it has room to grow, as any new collaboration does. At several junctures, for example, Russell dropped back into a supporting role on piano when he could have added a spark by asserting himself more. But given the memorable results they got by winging it, one wouldn’t want Willie and Leon to get too practiced at this.

D.D. Wood opened with a brief set marked by a winning directness and unflappability as she delivered tuneful, country-tinged pop songs that were simple but open-hearted. The Long Beach singer has a rich, dusky voice, and this show found her increasingly willing to challenge herself in her high range, with fine results. Piano player Ronnie King nailed down this year’s Mr. Versatility award on the local scene by providing sweet, sensitive accompaniment for Wood and her broken-stringed acoustic guitar. His main gig involves hammering out sheets of keyboard distortion as a member of the punk band the Joykiller.