brothers replied "Willie Who? Go ahead and close it." Following the division's closure, Wexler resigned. The album sold 400,000 copies, and Nelson was released from his Atlantic contract, prompting Columbia Records' executives to offer Nelson a contract giving him complete creative control of his works. Wexler later described Phases and Stages and Shotgun Willie as "having set Willie on a new path ... it was the coalescing of his audience, where the rednecks and the hippies came together. And to this day, that's Willie's audience." Mentioning Atlantic Records's doubts of recording Nelson at Muscle Shoals, Wexler wrote on his autobiography: "They said Muscle Shoals was too R&B for Willie. I said Willie was too R&B for Nashville". Nelson declared "Playing with the Muscle Shoals rhythm section, I was able to sharpen the edges. Wexler was right. That studio brought out the blues in me, big time.” The album became one of the first concept albums in country music. Phases and Stages was reissued by Atlantic Records on CD and LP formats in 2008. Critical reception Rolling Stone wrote: "(Nelson) seems to understand an unloved woman better than any dozen articles from Ms. (magazine). The fact that Nelson can fashion a believable scenario with such sparseness is a tribute to his ability to turn experience into good music. Phases And Stages, his best work to date, now seems to call out for the filmmaker who can turn good music into good cinema". Texas Monthly described the album as: "...a compassionate account of dissolution of marriage, which gave extremely sensitive male and female viewpoints". Billboard wrote: "Nelson's unfettered voice honestly portrays his songs of love and lament". Critic Robert Christgau wrote: "Nelson's combination of soft-spoken off-key and battered honky-tonk matches the bare, responsive country music Jerry Wexler has gotten out of the Muscle Shoals regulars." Newsweek wrote: "In Phases and stages (Nelson) looked far beyond country music's traditional shore of self pity toward a clear vision of real life country divorce". The Los Angeles Times review by critic Robert Hilburn remarked previous attempts at concept albums by Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and Bob Wills on country music and called Phases and Stages "an important breakthrough" for musicians of the genre to "use more care and ambition in the production of their albums". Hilburn felt that the result of the album presented a "chilling, authentic reflection of the contradictory, semi-desperate feelings" regarding divorce.