The project has actually been on the back burner for ten years, and was originally an idea cooked up with producer Don Was and Chris Blackwell, founder of Bob Marley's record label Island. And the red, green and gold album cover proudly displays a large marijuana leaf such a shame that he had to bow to the current culture of censorship in America and release a herb-free alternative version especially for Wal-Mart. And to make it clear that he was getting into the spirit of it all, Nelson apologises in the sleevenotes for forgetting to thank everyone, but they were probably too blunted to remember. Reggae is often called Jamaica's country music, and the more you think about it, the more you notice the similarities between the two genres the tales of the working man, the spiritual leanings, the pure and simple melodies. And putting classic Willie Nelson tunes through a reggae filter is an experiment that could have gone horribly wrong.but instead it sounds simply glorious. One thinks of failed attempts by other country artists at genre-bending, like that dance remix of Lonestar's "Amazed", that bloke rapping on Gretchen Wilson's records and the sheer bloody nerve of Shania Twain to bung a sitar on the remix of the Up! album and call it 'world music'. The words 'Willie Nelson's making a reggae album' would normally elicit a more brief response: somebody stop him.
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