In honor of Willie Nelson's birthday (April 30, 1933) I present to you one man's list of the most essential Willie albums.

According to Wikipedia the man has released over a 100 albums (although a chunk of that are comp albums that do not feature any new material so really the number is closer to 80 if you include live albums and movie soundtracks). Regardless, that's a ton of music. So what I'm giving you is the albums anyone who wants to call themselves a Willie fan absolutely must own.

I've also gone ahead and "ranked" them although that's a loose term because honestly on any given day my tastes change and I have a new favorite Willie record. But for today we're going to let it ride. Enjoy!