Songbird

Just as Daniel Lanois's production pushed Willie Nelson into moodier, more atmospheric sonic climes than ever before on 1998's TEATRO, so alt-country firebrand Ryan Adams, on 2006's SONGBIRD, prods the country icon into a space as raw and electric as any he's occupied in his long career. A big part of the reason is the backing of Adams's band the Cardinals--even a cover of Fleetwood Mac's lambent ballad "Songbird" is juiced up by gritty, distorted lead guitar. But Nelson's leathery, hardscrabble vocal delivery is what truly sets the weathered, organic tone throughout.
The song selection plays as an Americana fan's dream mix-tape; Nelson solemnly intones the Grateful Dead's stately, spooky "Stella Blue," drips some extra sadness onto Gram Parsons'x mournful, elegiac "$1000 Wedding," and leaps gamely into Adams's countrier-than-thou "Blue Hotel." The Red-Headed Stranger strikes close to the bone with a skeletal version of his own classic "Sad Songs & Waltzes" and a pedal-steel-sweetened take on Leonard Cohen's much-covered "Hallelujah." Whether lighting a fire under Willie or just laying back and letting him roll, Adams and company create a space on SONGBIRD in which an American treasure can play his most important role--himself.