Utilizing only a fiddle, a stand-up bass, a mandolin and guitars, the arrangements suggest a spontaneous musicale whose inspirations range from Django Reinhardt to Bob Wills to Les Paul. This all-purpose period sound perfectly complements Willie Nelson's Lone Star gypsy persona. Alternating with him on lead vocals is Freddie Powers, a Reno bandleader whose more casual swing style makes a nice contrast to Nelson's intensity.
Somewhere over the Rainbow may be the most audacious album thus far in the revivalist phase of Nelson's career. It's certainly the clearest expression yet of his conviction that all enduring popular music – be it Southern blues. Nashville country or Hollywood soundtrack–is equally pure. Nelson can make just about anything he sings sound like "roots" music, stripped to the bone to reveal homely truths. He even reclaims "Somewhere over the Rainbow" (which I'd assumed could never be disassociated from The Wizard of Oz and Judy Garland's quavering, world-weary renditions) from its vault in the Emerald City of pop mythology. Here, it sounds like a plainsman's lullaby to himself as he squints into a Western sunset: awkward, touching, mystified.
There are some questionable song choices. "Mona Lisa," a big hit for Nat "King" Cole in 1950, boasts a lovely melody, but not even Nelson can untangle the moony, goddess-worshiping lyric. "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," done as an instrumental, is perhaps overly cute. Most of the time, however, the singer succeeds in putting across his pantheistic pop philosophy. Besides "Mona Lisa," the LP's newest number (about thirty years old!), is an obscure Jimmy Wakely-Fred Rose country waltz, "It Wouldn't Be the Same (without You)." Along with Nelson's tribute to Lefty Frizzell (To Lefty from Willie) and his honky-tonk swing album with Ray Price (San Antonio Rose), this tune offers further evidence that there's a vast storehouse of vintage country cuts that haven't dated nearly as badly as several New York pop songs from the same era.
Willie Nelson ignores the distinctions between children's and adults' music the way he refuses to differentiate between country and pop. In addition to "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and the title track, Somewhere over
