ROBERT HILBURN : NELSON DIGS INTO PAST FOR DUETS

Willie Nelson’s no dummy.

Ever since his late ‘70s teamings with Waylon Jennings sparked Nelson’s massive pop-country breakthrough, he has done duets with everyone except the guy who drives his tour bus. Nelson’s latest album, in fact, is all duets.

On the “Half Nelson” LP, he sings one song each with 10 artists, including Merle Haggard, Ray Charles, Leon Russell, Mel Tillis, Julio Iglesias and Neil Young.

But there’s one matchup on the album that has more an eye on history than on broadening Nelson’s audience--a duet with Hank Williams.

Yes, that’s the late Hank Williams--probably the most highly regarded figure ever in country music--not the still active Hank Williams Jr.

The added surprise is that the duet--which was achieved by adding Nelson’s voice to a recording Williams made almost 40 years ago--doesn’t involve one of the late singer’s early ‘50s classics, such as “Your Cheatin’ Heart” and “Jambalaya.” The song, “I Told My Heart a Lie,” has never been released on record before.

Bill Ivey, director of the Country Music Foundation in Nashville, said Friday that an acetate of the song was discovered two years ago in a record collection acquired by the foundation’s library.

The song was on demonstration discs or demos cut by Williams shortly after signing a publishing deal with Acuff-Rose in 1946. The discs in question were sent to CBS producer Art Satherley in Los Angeles in hopes of getting the songs recorded by Molly O’Day, a West Coast-based country singer of the time.

Except for “I Told My Heart a Lie,” the songs, and songs on even earlier demos found by the Foundation’s Bob Pinson in the Acuff-Rose files, were later recorded by Williams and/or other artists. The foundation staff members were so excited by the discovery that they put together an album of the demos. Titled “Just Me and My Guitar,” the LP documents marvelously the role Williams’ hard-edged, blues-influenced style had in the evolution of contemporary pop-rock.

There’s a raw, earthy intensity to his singing and writing that suggests a kinship with the early work of Bob Dylan and Springsteen’s “Nebraska” album. (The demos LP is available by mail order only for $8.98 plus $2 postage through the Country Music Foundation, 4 Music Square East, Nashville, Tenn. 37203).

Rather than merely put “I Told My Heart” in the album, however, Ivey wanted to do something special with the song because finding an unreleased Williams tune is the equivalent in country music to finding in the literary world an unpublished Hemingway short story.

Ivey decided on the duet with Nelson because he sees Nelson as a vocalist in the honest, soulful tradition of Williams and he thought Nelson’s voice would make today’s radio programmers more likely to play the Williams track. Nelson readily agreed to sing harmony and play a guitar solo on the record. Unlike many teamings of singers from different eras, the attempt wasn’t to make Williams sound new, but to make Nelson seem like he was back in the studio with Williams in 1947.

The song itself is in keeping with the uncompromising, heartache quality of Williams’ music--music that usually spoke about lost love and hope in ways that went beyond the specifics of the tunes. Williams’ records seemed to summarize the disillusionment of working-class people who were unable to battle against the socio-economic forces that had limited their choices so severely there wasn’t even room left to dream. The only salvation or future in most of Williams’ songs was expressed in terms of spiritual rewards.

About Williams, Ivey said, “Listening to these demos has given me a new, even higher regard for the quality of his performance. He had the ability to convey emotion . . . a kind of heartbroken sorrow that I just haven’t heard in any other singer. As good as his studio recordings are, he’s even more powerful when you pare Williams down to just voice and guitar.”

The question is how radio programmers will view the record. There is a back-to-basics movement in country music these days and programmers are hailing newcomers like Ricky Scaggs, John Anderson and George Strait as in the “true tradition” of Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers. These artists are seen as heroes in the fight against the slick pop-country merger of the ‘70s. But will Williams himself be viewed as too basic? Stay tuned.

LIVE ACTION: El DeBarge, the Motels and Rick Springfield headline a LIFE benefit concert Tuesday at the Universal Amphitheatre. The organization provides food for Los Angeles’ hungry. . . . Teena Marie will be the New Year’s Eve attraction at the Palace. . . . General Public will be at the Universal Amphitheatre on Jan. 3, and Laurie Anderson is due there Jan. 18. . . . Peabo Bryson headlines the Beverly Theatre on Dec. 14, and B. B. King takes over Dec. 28. . . . Kid Creole & the Cocanuts have been added to the Motels’ Dec. 31 date at the Hollywood Palladium.