THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Willie Nelson’s new LP Oh What A Beautiful World arrives just in time for his 92nd birthday. It is his 154th album and 77th solo studio release, according to Texas Monthly’s interactive All Willie Nelson Albums Ranked lis. It premieres Willie’s new interpretations of 12 classic songs written or cowritten by Rodney Crowell — the latest in Nelson’s storied history of focusing entire albums on a single songwriter’s work.
The two Texas singer-songwriters’ careers have often intersected, beginning with Crowell first hearing Nelson’s earliest songs on the radio and seeing his shows in Houston in the mid 1960s. Willie first recorded a Crowell song in 1983 — and last did so 40 years later for 2024’s The Border. The first single and album title track features Crowell himself in a duet with Nelson.
Originally the closing track on Crowell’s 2014 opus Tarpaper Sky, Oh What A Beautiful World evokes the poignancy of passing time while Rodney and Willie’s new interpretation of the song shares a fresh sense of the deep human need to appreciate the beauty in each moment life has to offer.
Nelson’s new performances include early tracks like 1976’s Banks Of The Old Bandera (recorded by Jerry Jeff Walker) and 1981’s Shame On The Moon (a hit for Bob Seger), ’90s tracks like What Kind Of Love, (co-written by Will Jennings based on a Roy Orbison melody) and Stuff That Works (co-written with Guy Clark), early 2000s cuts written for hit albums by Keith Urban and Tim McGraw, four cuts from Crowell’s beloved 2010s albums and a cut released as recently as 2021.
Produced by longtime musical collaborator Buddy Cannon, Oh What A Beautiful World showcases Nelson on lead vocals and Trigger, accompanied by an esteemed studio band featuring Bobby Terry (acoustic guitar, steel guitar, electric guitar), James Mitchell (electric guitar), Jim “Moose” Brown (B3 organ, piano, Wurlitzer), Mickey Raphael (harmonica), Fred Eltringham (drums, percussion) and Glenn Worf (bass, upright bass), with background vocals by Wyatt Beard, Buddy Cannon and Melonie Cannon.”
