Willie Nelson's got a new album out, and it's a good one. Nelson, of course, is the king of duets, and The Great Divide features a raft of collaborations that suggest that he is seeking to travel down Santana's path to a Supernatural-style revival. Rob Thomas joins Willie on the album's opening track, "Maria (Shut Up and Kiss Me)," a Latin-tinged sizzler, produced by Matt Serletic, that is reminiscent of "Smooth." Lee Ann Womack joins Willie on another duet, "Mendocino County Line," a song that may well accomplish the near-impossible task of restoring the red-headed stranger to country radio, a format that has virtually made a religion of jettisoning the giant artists, like Nelson, who helped build country music.

Yes, this is a good time for Willie Nelson. He also has a new book out, The Facts of Life and Other Dirty Jokes, and last month he scored two Grammy nominations. One was in the Best Country Album category for Rainbow Connection, a collection of songs for children. More interestingly, though, Willie also received a nomination (Best Male Country Vocal Performance) for his spine-tingling version of "Marie" on Poet: A Tribute to Townes Van Zandt. Equally encouraging, Poet itself earned a nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Album, a category that has consistently put forth the strongest musical field of all the ever-expanding Grammy genres.

Setting aside the remote possibility that Poet or Nelson's stark rendition of "Marie" will win a Grammy, it's impressive to think that Van Zandt, who died in 1997 at the age of fifty-two, has achieved even that level of mainstream recognition. Very few honors came his way during his life, and practically no money. To be fair, whatever money did come to him, Van Zandt was prone to gamble away, and drinking, drugs and depression took the rest. For that reason, Van Zandt always comes to my mind when his peers, among whom Nelson would feel flattered to be included, enjoy a level of success from which he seemed destined to be excluded.

Not that Nelson would be one to forget him. Just the other night on the Late Show With David Letterman, Nelson played Van Zandt's "Poncho and Lefty" with Lyle Lovett. It was a terrific performance -- two Texans acknowledging the man who is the patron saint of Lone Star songwriters. Maybe a few of the people watching recalled Nelson's duet with Merle Haggard on that song, a classic of the "outlaw country" movement, back in the Eighties. But I can't imagine that very many of them at all had any idea at all who wrote it.

I interviewed Nelson recently, and he described "Marie" as perhaps the saddest song he'd ever heard -- and that's saying something. It's about a homeless couple facing the onset of cold weather and the prospect of no work and no money. The woman is pregnant. Few songwriters have the stomach to take on such grim themes, and many of those who do blink at the last minute and run for the cover of sentimentality or social commentary. Here, on the other hand, is Van Zandt's ending: "Marie, she didn't wake up this morning/She didn't even try/She just rolled over, and went to heaven/My little boy safe inside/I laid them in the sun where somebody could find them/And caught a Chesapeake on the fly/Marie will know that I'm heading south/So to meet me bye and bye."

It's tough stuff, but typical of Van Zandt's inability to sugarcoat the reality he sees. He was no stranger to homelessness, poverty or hopping trains. His music has been called folk and country, but, on its deepest level, it relates most comfortably to the blues. When it comes down to styles of music, Van Zandt used to like to say, "there's the blues, and there's zip-a-dee-doo-dah." He left no question which side of that line he stood on.

Over the past two years there's been a tremendous revival of interest in roots music. O Brother Where Art Thou? is only the most visible expression of that renewed passion, but there are many other examples. People initially turned to this music as a kind of protest against the childishness and soullessness of so much popular music these days. Then, after September 11th, an interest in a style of music that has sometimes been called "Americana" came to seem a kind of cultural patriotism. An iconic figure like Willie Nelson, who closed the America: A Tribute to Heroes telethon by leading a rendition of "God Bless America," stands for the best aspects of the American spirit of independence and self-reliance. And if he can get back on the charts with the help of Rob Thomas and Lee Ann Womack, more power to him. We could all do -- and have done -- far worse.

But, as one of the music's towering figures, unheralded though he is, Townes Van Zandt haunts the self-congratulatory roots revival. He is a songwriter who, at his best, rivals Hank Williams and Bob Dylan, but there is nothing cute, celebratory or charmingly old-timey about him. Far from reassuring, his songs are as unsettling as they come. They say, if you're serious about American music, eventually you're going to have to enter this darkness. Willie Nelson's been there, and we'll soon see if his many fans -- and if many Grammy voters -- are willing to follow.

ANTHONY DECURTIS
(January 25, 2002)