Delayed for a decade due to recording-label shenanigans, Willie Nelson’s reggae album, “Countryman”, is about to drop. It’ll include an original reggae composition from Johnny Cash and his wife, June Carter Cash, which Nelson performs as a duet with Toots Hibbert from Toots and the Maytals.

Reggae from one of country music’s grandmasters? Nelson doesn’t feel it’s so much of a stretch:

That Nelson’s country songs stand up so well to reggae’s offbeat syncopation and upstroke guitar strums is a testament to their durability. Nelson said he recorded them about 10 years ago in Los Angeles with Jamaican musicians, including some from the late reggae star Peter Tosh’s band.

“The musicians told me that reggae was invented really by listening to country music coming from the United States. They put their own rhythms to those tunes,” he said.

And of course, you can’t put out a reggae recording without a pinch of the herb:

While the music on “Countryman” might raise the eyebrows of country purists, so will the cover. With green marijuana leaves on a red and yellow background, the cover art makes the CD look like an oversized pack of rolling papers.

The marijuana imagery reflects Jamaican culture, where the herb is a leading cash crop and part of religious rites, but it also reflects Nelson’s fondness for pot smoking.

Universal Music Group Nashville is substituting palm trees for the marijuana leaves on CDs sold at the retail chain Wal-Mart, a huge outlet for country music that’s also sensitive about lyrics and packaging.