There is a man who works at the Willie Nelson Family General Store in Nashville, Tenn., who looks the part of a dedicated Nelson Family employee. He’s got the Willie hair and he obviously does the grass — prime employee of the month material stretched into perpetuity. You’ll remember this specific employee’s appearance long after you’ve left the city. You’ll think that the interview process must be similar to the one used for Hooter’s waitresses or rodeo clowns. The flaw in his character — though it’s one that makes him one hell of a salesman — is that he was in love with Willie’s 2005 album of reggae tunes. He was pumping it on the store’s sound system, pushing the new product, attempting to move some units and taking every opportunity to praise Countryman in front of browsing patrons. You wished him the best of luck, but that’s not the real Red-Headed Stranger, that’s the version of the Willie doing Kenny Chesney-meets-Jimmy Buffet surf, sand and margarita tunes. It’s the Jack Johnson side of him. We know Willie’s laidback. We know he likes to mellow out, but when he’s letting the tears float thick in his beer — not giving out a Caribbean joyride — is when he’s at his absolute best. And that’s the suitable beginning to a diatribe about Nelson’s new disc, Songbird, produced by Ryan Adams with contributions from his marvelous Cardinals. Here’s Nelson doing the best blue eyes crying in the rain-isms of the last few decades. And to think that those songs back in the day made him an outlaw. Either way, there’s plenty of rain falling on Songbird. There are broken weddings, dilapidated loves and enough somberness to choke the songbirds, but that greyness is encouraging in its intention. The trials that he sings about in “Back To Earth” are golden moments from a heart that can’t let go — sure — but like the best of Nelson’s sad songs, their beauty lies in the subtler feeling that the person on the other end, the love hanging in the past tense meant everything and that’s unforgetable. He sings, “Love created songs that I still sing/Love we knew still makes the rafters ring,” and similar to the sentiment here, there are songs on Songbird that stack up to some of Nelson’s greatest hits. The title track is another one of those. Nelson seems effortless on this record, revisiting thematic ideas that he’s lived in for years, but turning fresh ground this time around. The atmosphere in the studio, with Adams at the stead, feels like a winter coat, perfectly comfortable and protective. Left in the mixes of a number of tunes are comments (“play it on the steel guitar” and “kick it off if you’re ready”) that create a feeling that this record was done in one day, on one take. The songs share the same simplistic values of a starry sky or a lawn party under amber skies or a candlelight’s glow, sometimes kicking up a couple clouds of dust and gravel, but only ever so slightly. If the cashier at the Willie Nelson Family General Store loved Countryman, he’s got to be jabbering and stammering over Songbird.