★★★★★
?????????? Though he might have spent his early years hanging out with the likes of Patti Smith and Television at CBGB's, it was at the recently shuttered rock 'n' blues club Kenny's Castaways on Bleecker St. where a young Willie Nile made his name shortly after moving from his hometown of Buffalo, NY down to the Greenwich Village in the mid-to-late 70s...
- www.glidemagazine.com
2013-07-26
★★★★★
"Headin' down to Memphis on the 419, Lookin' for Elvis Presley and the Reverend Green." --"American Ride" Rock 'n' roll promised its listeners from the very beginning that America was an Eden in waiting, that in spite of its unspeakable failures, its monstrous racial, sexual, and class inequities, it could be the utopia we've all been trying so hard to get back to...
- www.popmatters.com
2013-06-27
★★★★★
The unexpected mid-life career resurgence of New York City based singer/songwriter Willie Nile continues. He started back in 1980 and '81 with two impressive, critically lauded gritty folk-rock albums that never found anything other than a cult audience even with constant touring and positive press. Record label woes kept him from recording until a decade later, but after one more solid catalog entry, he was dormant until 2004. That's when the creative flood gates seem to have opened...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2013-06-26
★★★★★
A hell of a lot has been written about rock & roll singer/songwriter Willie Nile since he made his Arista debut in 1981. Musicians and press alike have sung his praises across the globe, yet mainstream success has always proved elusive. It hasn't deterred him, however; he's continued to issue new recordings -- albeit sporadically -- that have been lyrically consistent, and contain enough deft, melodic hooks, to justify his unrepentant swagger...
- www.allmusic.com
2013-07-02
★★★★★
Friends in high places may once in awhile throw you a bone, but won't really invest themselves into helping you move forward. Willie Nile, championed by Bruce Springsteen, Pete Townshend, Lou Reed and Bono, and this big artist and that other one, still struggled to get this album released in the United States, despite its being the epitome of real, true American rock 'n' roll. I've learned from experience that it's only "who you know" to an extent...
- www.popmatters.com
2011-11-14
★★★★★
In New York City in the late '70's, there was a distinct and thriving music scene brought to life by guitar-playing poets who loved Bob Dylan and rock 'n' roll. Willie Nile is one of those musicians who came up during those vibrant times and made his mark by opening for The Who during their 1980 tour. In The Streets of New York, the influence of Dylan's stream-of-consciousness lyric style ignites Nile's songwriting...
- www.offbeat.com
2010-11-09
★★★★★
Touted as heir to his career-defibrillating Streets of New York (2006), Willie Nile's House of a Thousand Guitars jumps the curb for an introspective trek through the looking glass. Like an Eastern seaboard Alex Chilton or Jimmie Dale Gilmore, the veteran troubadour, with vocals so reedy (Dylan, not Lou), remains a songsmith's songsmith...
- www.austinchronicle.com
2009-07-21
★★★★★
It'staken a full decade for singer-songwriter Willie Nile to put out histhird album, Places I Have Never Been, and it sounds like the work ofa guy who's been itching, bursting, exploding to say something for 10long years. Nile's previous collections were widely praisedcommercial bombs; he came off as a talented fellow deeply influencedby Bob Dylan's brawny folk-rock and Bruce Springsteen's overwroughtpoetic earnestness...
- ew.com
2009-06-12
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