Willie Nelson - Countryman [Digipack]
![Countryman [Digipack]](/images/Countryman-Digipack-B0009ML1Q6-L.jpg)
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Willie NelsonEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2005-07-12
Music Label: Lost Highway
Soundtracks:
- Do You Mind Too Much If I Don't Understand
- How Long Is Forever
- I'm A Worried Man (featuring Toots Hibbert)
- The Harder They Come
- Something To Think About
- Sitting In Limbo
- Darkness On The Face Of The Earth
- One In A Row
- I've Just Destroyed The World
- You Left A Long, Long Time Ago
- I Guess I've Come To Live Here
- Undo The Right
Free Music Notes for Countryman [Digipack]
Free Music Review: Very unfairly maligned -- this is actually a GREAT Willie Nelson album
Hit: 5 Stars
For some reason that I cannot understand, this album was severely criticized by music reviewers. Perhaps they just thought "Oh, this is goofy. Who needs a reggae album from Willie Nelson?" Perhaps they figured it didn't make any sense musically. Perhaps they thought it was nothing more than a reflection of Willie's fondness for the little green-leafed plant pictured on the cover of the album.
But if you love Willie Nelson, IGNORE those critics. Here's what you get on this album:
(1) You get nine of Willie Nelson's finest compositions, many of them rarities that he originally recorded back in the 60s before he was well-known. And these reggae-tinged versions are SUPERIOR to Nelson's own original recordings of the same songs. Trust me, I've listened to the originals! If you love those really sad, sad, sad Willie Nelson songs that he wrote back in the days when he was a truly sad guy (before all the fame, before the whole hippie thing), you will LOVE these songs. They are not really reggae versions. They are classic Willie Nelson country songs with a reggae TINGE to them. It's Willie with a very subtle, low-key reggae rhythm section -- and that riddim DOES fit with Willie's slightly off-the-beat trademark vocal style.
(2) You get a great Johnny Cash song ("Worried Man") with Willie Nelson dueting with Toots Hibbert.
(3) Finally, you get two cuts that, in my view, were unnecessary: Willie's cover versions of two reggae standards "The Harder They Come" and "Sitting in Limbo." Frankly, I these are the weakest cuts. And I think some critics, hearing those cuts, got turned off to the whole project, thinking "oh this is just some cheesy reggae retreads."
Not that there's anything wrong with those two reggae covers per se. It's just that they kinda confuse the concept. The REAL concept of this album is NOT "Willie Nelson does reggae." It's that Willie Nelson re-records some of his best older songs from his sad old days, and does so with a bit of a reggae flavor.
(4) You get some of best-sounding Willie Nelson vocals in his entire recorded catalog. And some of those great understated Willie Nelson acoustic guitar breaks.
If it sounds like I'm on a crusade for this album, well in a way I am. I am a huge fan of REAL country music (of the Hank, Lefty, Merle, Johnny Cash school) and I'm a huge Willie Nelson fan, and I think this album has been unfairly derided by way too many people, professional and amateur critics alike.
I own literally thousands of albums, and Willie Nelson's "Countryman" is honestly and truly one of the ones I'd take with me to that proverbial desert island.
Countryman [Digipack] Poster
After nearly a decade of gestation, Willie Nelson?s long-lost, and first, reggae set is at last complete. The seed of this project took root in late 1995, sprung from the mind of famed producer Don Was. Nelson and his manager Mark Rothbaum flew to Jamaica to meet with Island Records president and founder Chris Blackwell. Don had been speaking with both Blackwell and Nelson about the prospect of creating a reggae-infused country album and both men were intrigued. Blackwell was the ideal collaborator. Not only was he the person who introduced rock audiences to the world of reggae but likewise introduced them to Bob Marley. As a versatile, well-connected music aficionado, he could realize this marriage of country and reggae the way few others could.In fact, the two genres are compatible in many ways, and not as distant stylistically as one might initially imagine. Toots Hibbert proved it with his triumphant version of "Country Roads" and the renown reggae group the Melodians were the first to turn the gospel/bluegrass classic "Rivers of Babylon," (also previously covered by Willie) into a full-on reggae classic. Perhaps it?s not a coincidence that reggae is sometimes referred to as Jamaica?s "country music," being that both forms have drawn similar lyrical content from everyday matters and share a foundation in spiritual and gospel music. Countryman is Willie?s impassioned tribute to the upstroke sound of Jamaica, an irie voyage to the land of dub and dreadlocks. Willie takes a handful of his own classics and filters them through a reggae prism, peppering them with his nylon acoustic guitar, pedal steel, dobro, harmonica and the familiar comforts of country, while bringing drums and bass to the forefront, yard style.
So, after a journey lasting over a decade, Willie?s Jamaican vision at last sees the bright light of day. While it?s just one in a long line of hyphenated hybrid projects the versatile genius has created over the years, this Countryman feels, by the sound of it, genuinely comfortable amid the island breezes of Jamaica.
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