Country Fever is the sixteenth studio album by American singer Rick Nelson, and his ninth for Decca Records,[1] released on April 17, 1967. The album features Nelson's composition of "Alone" and a cover of Bob Dylan's "Walkin' Down The Line", Nelson's earliest Dylan cover.
The sessions also produced a couple of numbers taken from old Sun Records by Elvis Presley; "Mystery Train", which was included on the album.[2] He sampled the classic country catalog, including "You Win Again," "Funny How Time Slips Away," and "(I Heard That) Lonesome Whistle Blow." "Alone" was a self-penned tune while "Walkin' Down the Line" was the first Bob Dylan song that he recorded.[3] These songs formed a kind of semi-autobiographical trilogy, as he sketched himself as a desolate but determined loner.[2]Jimmie Haskell arranged the album and Charles "Bud" Dant produced it, this was the last of fifteen consecutive Nelson studio LPs, produced by Charles "Bud" Dant.
The album was released on compact disc by Ace Records on June 23, 1998 as tracks 12 through 24 on a pairing of two albums on one CD with tracks 1 through 12 consisting of Nelson's 1966 album, Bright Lights and Country Music.[4]Bear Family included the album in the 2008 For You: The Decca Years box set.[5]
Richie Unterberger of AllMusic said that "Country 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".[1]
Record Mirror described the album as "one of his consistent perfromaces" and stated that "His own compostition is more than honky-tonk can rare with treatments by long-time country greats.[6]
