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- Summary: The latest album for the country singer produced by T Bone Burnett features popular bluegrass, country, and folk songs.
- Record Label: Rounder
- Genre(s): Country
- More Details and Credits »
Score distribution:
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Positive: 13 out of 15
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Mixed: 2 out of 15
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Negative: 0 out of 15
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While you'll wait in vain for Nelson's own songs, which have gotten increasingly rare as the years go by, this is easily the new millennium's most effective showcase of the gifts that Nelson's reputation rests upon.
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The natural, gloss-free sound clears the way for Willie's voice, as cozy as an old pair of slippers; the 77-year-old singer's persona is inseparable from any song he sings, even when he's never sung it before and even when it's cruise-ship reggae.
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Helmed by producer T Bone Burnett, this is front-porch, rural and rustic country music. Nelson is perfect in this setting, however, as he brings his weathered but expressive pipes to percussion-less arrangements of such gems as Ernest Tubb's "Seaman's Blues," Merle Travis' miner's lament "Dark As a Dungeon" and the smooth stride of Bob Wills' "Gotta Walk Alone."
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Q MagazineHe's back where he really belongs with the T-Bone Burnett-produced Country Music. [Jun 2010, p.132]
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Throughout the album, Burnett's players (including guitarist Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale on harmony vocals) cushion Nelson's singing with warm string-band arrangements that never overpower his understated delivery.
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It's an often robust album that flaunts Mr. Nelson's versatility.
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Most of the time, Nelson just sounds like an old pro happy to play with whoever is in the studio, happy to sing whatever the producer puts in front of him--and that's what makes Country Music not all that different from Songbird or Countryman, which were also driven by their respective producers to places that don't seem as classically country as this purports to be.
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