Van Zandt spent his career from Day One authoring his impending death, and this 1970 album, produced by Jack Clement of Sun Records fame, is as fatalistic and off-handedly portentous as Leonard Cohen"s finest, and considerably less affected (Robert Altman could have easily substituted Van Zandt for Cohen on the soundtrack of McCabe and Mrs. Miller). Not many songwriters familiar with electricity could pull off a song entitled "Waitin" Around to Die." Clement"s production is topnotch country doomuzak, although the poorly mastered CD doesn"t really reflect this. Put this on before you rent The Wild Bunch. --D. Strauss