Laying My Burdens Down

The most boisterous of all Willie Nelson’s RCA albums, Laying My Burden Down is notable for the diversity of its material and the orchestral arrangements which drive every song. Nelson wasn’t completely suited to the role of big-band country crooner, but the arrangements work wonders for some songs, especially the title track, a swift re-envisioning of gospel music in which the orchestra doesn’t bear down on the rigging of the song so much as it blows into its sails. A few years earlier, a dark breakup tune like “I Don’t Feel Anything” would have almost certainly been given the honky-tonk treatment, but here it is instead propelled by a subtly funky groove and an orchestral arrangement that is more crafty than it is triumphant. Nelson’s songs don’t always match the pop arrangements, but other times they make a great match, as on “Following Me Around,” which shows what Willie might have sounded like had he gone on to work with Burt Bacharach rather than Waylon Jennings.