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Editorial Reviews

Country had never heard anything quite like Willie Nelson's 1982 album Always on My Mind. Enlisting the services of producer Chips Moman (legendary for his work at Stax Records and with Elvis in the late '60s and early '70s), Willie deconstructed Aretha Franklin's "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man," Procol Harum's "Whiter Shade of Pale" (with some vocal help from Waylon Jennings), and Paul Simon's "Bridge over Troubled Water," putting his own stamp on these well-turned songs with an approach that bridged country and pop-rock with dense, layered arrangements, lending the disc a moody ambiance. "Let It Be Me" gives the Everly Brothers' pop arrangement a fresh edge with searing alto sax solos. Kiss-offs don't get any more beautiful, or more scalding, than the one Nelson delivers in his self-penned blues ballad "Permanently Lonely." He turns the tables on himself in his "The Party's Over," a mid-tempo country meditation on his own failings as a significant other. Of course the key number here is the one Willie picked up from Elvis, "Always on My Mind," another exercise in self-recrimination featuring a stunning arrangement by Moman that blends gospel and pop -- simply beautiful and heartrending in every aspect. Two top-notch Nelson originals are bonus tracks here: the acoustic-based waltz "The Man Who Owes Everything," about a fellow who knows very well how to take but not how to give and is duly haunted throughout eternity; and a brisk shuffle, "I'm a Memory," another gleeful kiss-off song energized by a rich B3 organ, speed-picked acoustic guitar, and a female gospel chorus. A triumph of style and substance, Always on My Mind has aged most gracefully. David McGee, Barnes & Noble

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