PARTNERS IN RHYME

“THE PROMISELAND.” Willie Nelson. Columbia. “WILL THE WOLF SURVIVE.” Waylon Jennings. MCA.

The latest solo works from these two Texas outlaws find Waylon making a couple of major moves--to a new label and to Nashville to record--while his part-time partner in rhyme Nelson remains where he’s been stuck for years, musically and geographically.

Nelson takes the something-for-everyone approach in this jumble of an album, skipping randomly from tired sociological messages (“The Promiseland”) to cliched love songs (“Here in My Heart”) to misplaced pop standards (“Basin Street Blues”).

Side 1 gets bogged down in a hopelessly somnambulistic groove from which a couple of interesting Western swing/jazz arrangements on Side 2 can’t rebound. Nelson closes the album by turning Bach’s Minuet in G into a cheesy country waltz. As with his formulaic live shows, this is more music-making by the numbers from the Red-Headed Snoozer.

Jennings, on the other hand, displays abundant concern in his first album for MCA, even when the material isn’t up to his heroic efforts. An alternately celebratory, funny and absorbing look at loners, losers, lovers and survivors, the album gracefully crosses stylistic boundaries, from the rock majesty of Los Lobos’ title tune to the country sorrow of “Suddenly Single.” Jennings maintains the thematic cohesiveness and musical honesty missing from Nelson’s album.

There are a couple of weak spots, and one real clinker--”I’ve Got Me a Woman,” songwriter Paul Kennerly’s attempt at Dylanesque oblique imagery that’s just empty wordplay. But even if the LP isn’t the milestone that some of his mid-’70s records were, Jennings shows enough integrity to keep the faithful happy and perhaps win some new fans from the rock audience.