by Richie UnterbergerCountry Fever continued the country direction of Nelson's previous album, Bright Lights & Country Music, and the approach of each record was similarly weighted toward interpretations of country classics. Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers, and Acuff-Rose all get covered here, and his sensitive reading of Willie Nelson's "Funny How Time Slips Away" is a standout. There's no denying, though, that the best cut is the one that gets closest to rockabilly (a cover of "Mystery Train"). Nelson's two original compositions weren't much, but on the other hand there was an obscure Bob Dylan tune that the composer had not released ("Walkin' Down the Line"), and "Things You Gave Me," with its steady beat and harmonies, sounded more like a foreshadowing of late-'60s California country rock than anything else Nelson had recorded up to this point. The album has been combined with 1966's Bright Lights & Country Music onto a single-disc CD reissue on Kent.