Countryman

What is it with people making reggae cover albums? A month before Sinéad O'Connor unleashes her Jah-tastic Throw Down Your Arms collection, Willie Nelson gets in on the act with this frankly rather bizarre album.
It was recorded 10 years ago but there’s not an awful lot of information forthcoming as to why it’s sat on the shelf for all this time.
The artwork is awful – a multi-coloured ganja leaf on the cover, while Willie stands around in a wood in his cowboy hat on the reverse. The music is an equally uneasy mix. There’s no doubting that the reggae bit sounds lovely, guided by producer Don Was and featuring a rake of fine players. The problems begin when Nelson gets involved. He’s not the greatest singer in the world, which is fine when working within his usual medium. Here, however, he struggles to keep pace with the backing and wobbles all over the place, hitting the right notes at random.
Worse is the fact that he sounds completely disinterested in the whole thing. Only once does this shoddy affair make its presence worthwhile, on a cover of ‘The Harder They Come’ that dispenses with the reggae rhythms and plays it straight. It’s the sole glimpse of the old Willie Nelson, getting to the heart of a song and making it his own.
A decade years, though, is a long time to wait for a solitary bright spark. A Willie Nelson reggae album – shouldn’t work. And it doesn’t.