Willie Nelson has his own label now, and it shows, not very flatteringly. The graphics on the jacket of The Sound in Your Mind (Lone Star) are about the worst I've seen, but it has enough good music on the inside to make it worth your while. "That Lucky Old Sun" and a medley of three of his old hits are the high points. Willie still gets sentimental and ponderous at times, as in "The Healing Hands of Time" but here's nothing as awful as his "Blue Eyes Cryin' in the Rain", thank God.

Emmylou Harris' latest is Elite Hotel, (Reprise) and if you've heard the two singles off it, "Together Again" and "Sweet Dreams", I don't blame you for not wanting to hear the rest. But those don't belong on the same record with the other songs. "Sin City" and "One of these Days" are perfectly suited to her--beautiful songs with painful, longing lyrics. Her own composition, "Amarillo", a ballad about losing her lover to a pinball machine, shows a nice sense of humor.

I've postponed mentioning Guy Clark's No. 1 (RCA) till now to try to get a grip on myself. Never mind: it's probably the finest country album I've ever heard. The best numbers are "Rita Ballou" ("She's a rawhide rope and velvet mixture/ Walkin' talkin' Texas texture/ High timin' barroom fixture/ Kind or a girl") and "Texas--1947". This is the first album for Clark, a first-rate songwriter who wrote a lot of Jerry Jeff Walker's material. His voice is a raunchy beer-soaked, high whine, gritty and vital. Playboy calls his songs "Larry McMurtry set to music", but it would be more accurate to call McMurtry a literary version of Guy Clark. If Clark doesn't become a superstar, it won't be form lack of talent.

Of course, I said the same thing about Tanya Tucker when she started out at age thirteen. Her latest is called Lovin' and Learnin' (MCA), and she may get plenty of the former, but she can use a lot more of the latter. This album suffers from trying to make her sound less country, which is as hopeless as trying to make Frank Church sound less pompous. The worst numbers (it's a tough choice) are "Ain't That a Shame", a pathetic attempt at a rock number, and "Makin' Love Don't Always Make Love Grow" (honest, folks). Tanya has a rich, explosive voice, but until she quits trying to be a female Elvis Presley (she said it, not me), her records just make good Frisbees.