By Scott McLennan

The Outlaw Music Festival’s overall pacing of performers from newest to most veteran offered an interesting overview of how country, folk, and rock have blended over the decades.

Willie Nelson with Madeline Edwards at The Outlaw Music Festival. Photo: Scott McLennan

Over the course of its 10-year existence, the Outlaw Music Festival has supplied one of the few satisfactory working definitions for the musical label “Americana.” It’s music that Willie Nelson likes.

Nelson, one of country music’s original so-called outlaws, once again helms the touring fest which rotates its cast of performers as it treks around the country for the summer. At the Xfinity Center in Mansfield on Sept. 7, Outlaw presented Bob Dylan, Sheryl Crow, Waxahatchee, and Madeline Edwards before the 92-year-old Nelson delivered his night-closing set. The festival’s overall pacing of performers from newest to most veteran offered an interesting overview of how country, folk, and rock have blended over the decades.

Edwards opened the show with a powerful set drawn mainly from a new album of songs that address her brother’s suicide. She was a rising star out of Nashville before embarking on an artistic quest to address this personal tragedy, a project opposed by her industry team. The resulting album, FRUIT, is one of the year’s must-hear recordings, and the numbers she pulled from that effort, performed with guitar accompaniment, were among the most resonant of the entire show on Sunday.

Edwards was at ease delving into difficult topics. That said, she also wove in earlier songs that were perhaps not as heavy as her latest. But they were well-crafted, and provided additional showcases for her expansive vocal chops. A cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain” could have been swapped out for one more original. She didn’t need that kind of bait to make the audience listen to her fine work.

Waxahatchee drew together indie and roots rock for the distinct sound that has been shaped by Katie Crutchfield, who started performing under the Waxahatchee banner in 2010. Now as much a band as a singer-songwriter project, Waxahatchee presented finely detailed passages that came across as short stories or journal entries set to music. Crutchfield dedicated her song “Lilacs” to Nelson, Dylan, and Crow. It was easy to hear how those artists influenced her work in terms of wordsmithing, tune-crafting, and delivery.

Sheryl Crow at The Outlaw Music Festival Photo: Scott McLennan

Crow delivered the poppiest set, demonstrating how far songs could be pushed toward commercial appeal before losing their edge. The tunes pulled from her 1993 breakout album Tuesday Night Music Club remain her least-compromised work, while the new track, The New Normal, offered agitated platitudes set to by-the-numbers rock ’n’ roll. In terms of performing, Crow is still a dynamo, and it is a treat to hear former Black Crowes guitarist Audley Freed fire up her music.

In sharp contrast to Crow’s cheerleading, Dylan performed hidden behind blinding lights positioned in front of the piano where he remained stationary for most of his set. And, just in case you managed to catch a glimpse of him, Dylan opted to wear a big jacket and hood. So yeah, America’s greatest living songwriter remains America’s most certifiable oddball.

Dylan’s approach, however, puts the focus squarely on his music and how his razor sharp band performed it. From the opening “Masters of War,” which was done as a blues dirge, he set out to reshape a selection of his well known songs, offering up obscure covers as well as playing some of his own deeper cuts. Dylan shared his love of early rock ’n’ roll and R&B via versions of Bo Diddley’s “I Can Tell” and George “Wild Child” Butler’s “Axe and the Wind.” Setting “To Ramona” as a waltz sounded fresh, but playing the epic and surreal “Desolation Row” at breakneck speed was off-kilter.

Via a wild deconstruction of “’Til I Fell in Love With You” Dylan almost turned Outlaw into a jazz fest, but so what? The arrangement was fantastic and perfectly executed by his group, still anchored by guitarists Doug Lancio and Bob Britt and bassist Tony Garnier, with drummer Anton Fig joining the band this year.

“Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” is a classic break-up number, covered countless times by others, most of whom stick to the country-folk style Dylan used when he recorded the song. But when Dylan played it to close his set Sunday, he stripped the song bare, treating it delicately. The beauty and ache of the original version could still be heard, but from a different angle. This re-working served as a perfect example of what goes into making a song a great song.

Nelson closed the festival in high fashion, despite looking every second of his 92 years. Guitarist Waylon Payne and harmonica player Mickey Raphael provided gentle support whenever Nelson wavered during his set. But the musician can still pack a wallop, as he did with a poignant cover of Tom Waits’s “Last Leaf” and when he landed all the punchlines on “It’s Hard to Be Humble.”

Songs such as “I Never Cared for You,” “On the Road Again,” “Funny How Time Slips Away,” “Crazy,” and “Night Life” take on a new life once the band starts playing them. And, for that time on stage, the artist seems as timeless as the songs themselves.

Nelson still delivers his songbook with all the humility and passion that has defined his career. He is the rare example of the kind of unifying artist who can not just bring together diverse musical acts under a festival umbrella, but draws an audience that reflects the diversity of America itself.

Scott McLennan covered music for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette from 1993 to 2008. He then contributed music reviews and features to The Boston Globe, Providence Journal, Portland Press Herald, and WGBH, as well as to The Arts Fuse. He also operated the NE Metal blog to provide in-depth coverage of the region’s heavy metal scene.