Willie Nelson Album: “Milk Cow Blues”

Have you ever heard a Willie Nelson album that didn't contain shades of the blues? This is certainly his most direct foray into the genre, but it undoubtedly remains a Willie Nelson record.

As Willie records are sometimes hit or miss, I was wary of this disc when I saw the number of guest artists appearing, but fear not - they all blend in marvelously, none overpowering the lazy, relaxed vibe maintained from beginning to finish. The guest vocalists don't dominate the song and always complement Willie's lead (and none better than B.B. King). The guest musicians treat Willie's guitar much the same.

No number immediately shines as a real standout, but none are stinkers, either. Willie's own compositions, especially "Funny How Time Slips Away," "Night Life" and "Crazy" fare best, but numbers that have become blues standards like "The Thrill Is Gone" and "Ain't Nobody's Business" satisfy as well.

All in all, another wonderful Willie album, but still four stars out of five as the production is flat and glossy, providing none of the texture necessary to make this a classic. You want to smell the smoke, taste the whiskey on this one, but it's just too clean. Still, it's a keeper - a marvelous follow-up to TEATRO.

On this album Willie Nelson performs a number of different blues numbers, some of which he wrote (such as Rainy Day Blues) and some of which are great blues standards written by others (such as The Thrill is Gone, which was actually BB King's only top 40 hit). This album has renditions of several Willie Nelson classics such as Crazy and Night Life, and also includes guest appearances by such blues greats as BB King, Keb Mo, Johnny Lang, Dr. John, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and others. With that kind of talent, this CD should be better than it is. Unfortunately, I have the feeling that Nelson was never in the studio at the same time as the other performers. Instead, this CD sounds like one of those deals where the studio musicians laid down their tracks, Nelson showed up on a different day to lay down his tracks, and then the guest performers showed up on yet another day to lay down their tracks -- all separately done with very little musical interaction -- and the engineers did the rest.

The really great thing about albums which mix and match players in a REAL studio environment is that you can hear different musicians react to each other and almost provide a "jam" kind of feeling that occurs when performers with different musical styles collide and interact. On this album, however, all the performances seem to be siloed and sanitized, with very little dynamic interaction or even harmonies between Nelson's vocals and those of the other players. The vocals on Night Life, in particular, sound almost awkward in the way that King and Nelson fail to connect or interact. With this much talent represented on this CD, there are of course some high points but there are some low points as well, including a couple of painful flat notes from Susan Tedeschi on "Crazy." Overall, it's not a bad album, but it could have been much better.

In many respects, this is a great album. Yet, as I listen to it, I can't help but feel unsatisfied. First of all, the choice of tunes could have been a little more imaginative. If you have B.B. King's "Deuces Wild" album of duets, you will notice that the two had already taken a pass at "Night Life" together, and quite frankly, as much as I love "The Thrill is Gone", I am not sure I needed yet another version of the song. And the reading of "Texas Flood" is too close to Stevie Ray Vaughan's version to avoid comparisons. I wish Kenny Wayne Shepherd stopped trying to sound like SRV and just played like himself (which is quite good). Second, Keb Mo', Susan Tedeschi and Jonny Lang are used only as singers. I wish they had lent their considerable guitar playing talents to the songs they played on.

On the positive side, Susan Tedeschi is no Patsy Cline, but she delivers a solid performance on a wonderful version of "Crazy". Jimmy Vaughan plays wonderfully on "Kansas City". And Francine Reed's down and dirty vocals enliven "Milk Cow Blues" and "Funny How Time Slips Away".

At the end of the day though, who salvages the album is Willie Nelson himself. His singing bridges country and the blues to remind us that at the end of the day good music is just good music. And his guitar solos have an edgy odd quality to them, often going outside the traditional blues scale.

I've enjoyed Willie's music for years, but have gotten to love it since Teatro (my favorite). I just listened to this CD for the first time and can't believe I was not familiar with it before. It's a close second to Teatro. I love it!!! Willie can pull off singing almost anything, but his voice is all about the blues!

The sound on this recording is bright, crisp and in-your-face. Willie is an all time favorite of mine but for me this recording misses the essence of Willie Nelson blues--which I have heard many times in concert. Why? Because there is too much deference to his duet partners who give the sound too much of a jolt. I would have preferred these selections with just Willie and his band. This CD would have come off more authentic and reflective of how Wille does the blues- he is a great interpreter in his own right- if other voices and guitars had not been added.