Countryman (Lost Highway)r e v i e w
Everybody knows that Willie Nelson smokes weed just like the most diehard Rastafarian. But this, the man's first reggae album, is also a fairly successful venture outside of his usual country music boundaries.
There are a few classic reggae songs found here, such as Jimmy Cliff's "The Harder They Come," and a duet with Toots Hibbert, one of reggae's most soulful singers. Naturally, there are also some fine Willie songs too, such as "Darkness On The Face Of the Earth." And even though the beat lopes on at a leisurely island pace, you can still hear plenty of Willie's familiar gut string acoustic guitar work, such as the solo he takes on "I've Just Destroyed the World."
Some of these arrangements make for oddball musical matches, especially exemplified by the crying steel guitar on the otherwise reggae-fied "Do You Mind too much if I Don't understand." Most other
country singers would have had a hard time pulling off this kind of a cross-cultural recording. But it all sounds so easy for easygoing Willie; He's comes off as a true Texan-Jamaican here.
by Dan MacIntosh
