Consumer Guide Album

Willie Nelson: Willie Nelson's Greatest Hits (and Some That Will Be) [Columbia, 1981]
Nelson's strength is hitting a song on the button while glancing off in the other direction, and a compilation is no way to highlight it--the necessarily haphazard structure makes him seem not so much casual as indolent. He needs a little album structure--standards, collaboration, half-assed narrative--to tone things up. Song for song, relaxing; on the whole, mushy. B+