WILLIE NELSON – Oh What A Beautiful World – LP – Vinyl [APR 25]

LP – Black Vinyl.

Willie Nelsons new album (his 77th solo studio album and his 154th album overall) is an album that focuses on the songs of Rodney Crowell, the latest in Nelsons storied history of focusing entire albums on a single songwriters work. Willie Nelson and Rodney Crowell are two Texas singer-songwriters whose careers have intersected often since Crowell first heard Nelsons earliest songs on the radio and saw his shows in Houston in the mid-1960s. Willie first recorded a Rodney Crowell song in 1983 and last did so 40 years later for 2024s The Border.

Produced by Nelsons longtime collaborator Buddy Cannon and featuring an amazing backing band of Nashville gunslingers accompanying Nelsons vocals and inspired guitar work on Trigger, the album handpicks 12 songs from the last 50 years, including the title track as a duet between Nelson and Crowell. From early tracks like 1976s Banks Of The Old Bandera (recorded by Jerry Jeff Walker) and 1981s Shame On The Moon (a hit for Bob Seger) to 90s tracks like What Kind Of Love, (co-written by Will Jennings based on a Roy Orbison melody), Stuff That Works (co-written with Guy Clark), from early 2000s cuts written for hit albums by Keith Urban and Tim McGraw to four cuts from Crowells beloved 2010s albums and a cut released as recently as 2021.

Tracklist:

Side A
1. What Kind Of Love
2. Banks Of The Old Bandera
3. The Fly Boy & The Kid
4. Forty Miles From Nowhere
5. I Wouldnt Be Me Without You
6. Making Memories Of Us

Side B
1. Oh What A Beautiful World (with Rodney Crowell)
2. Open Season On My Heart
3. Shame On The Moon
4. Shes Back In Town
5. Still Learning How To Fly
6. Stuff That Works