HomeEF CountryWillie Nelson announces new album My Way

Willie Nelson announces new album My Way

Legendary country musician Willie Nelson has announced the release of his latest album, My Way – a collection of standards made famous by the late, great Frank Sinatra.

Sinatra opened for Nelson at Las Vegas’s Golden Nugget in the 1980s, and they also appeared together in a NASA Space Foundation public service announcement. As a result, the pair were close friends, musical colleagues and mutual admirers of each other’s work throughout Sinatra’s lifetime.

“I learned a lot about phrasing listening to Frank,” Nelson said in a recent interview with AARP magazine. “He didn’t worry about behind the beat or in front of the beat, or whatever—he could sing it either way, and that’s the feel you have to have.”

[brid video=”273011″ player=”531″ title=”Willie Nelson Summer Wind (Official Music Video)”]

 

Nelson has also released the album’s lead single, his take on the classic Summer Wind, and an accompanying video. The clip shows Nelson recording the song in a studio with his band, intercut with vintage-look shots of waves crashing on a beach and footprints in the sand.

My Way will be released on 14th September via Legacy Recordings, and was produced by Buddy Cannon and Matt Rollins. It includes iconic songs such as It Was A Very Good Year, Fly Me To The Moon and the title track, as well as a duet with Norah Jones on What Is This Thing Called Love. The album will be available on CD, vinyl LP and digital formats, and fans can also purchase the album via Nelson’s website as part of exclusive merchandise bundles.

Perhaps surprisingly, this isn’t Nelson’s first album which takes on the Great American Songbook. He previously recorded many standards on his seminal 1978 album Stardust, and also covered the songs of Ira Gershwin on 2006’s Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin, which won him a Best Traditional Vocal Album Grammy Award.

The track listing for My Way is:

  1. Fly Me To The Moon
  2. Summer Wind
  3. One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)
  4. A Foggy Day
  5. It Was A Very Good Year
  6. Blue Moon
  7. I’ll Be Around
  8. Night and Day
  9. What Is This Thing Called Love (with Norah Jones)
  10. Young At Heart
  11. My Way

Originally from Texas, Nelson began to play guitar aged six and wrote his first song a year later. He is perhaps best known as one of the key figures in the 1970s ‘outlaw country’ movement, largely due to his critically acclaimed 1975 album Red Headed Stranger which was his first release in his 18-year stint with Columbia Records. He signed with Sony’s Legacy Recordings Division in February 2012 and has released 12 albums with the label, which include new songs and archival releases from across his career, selling over one million copies since signing. Additionally, Nelson has written hits for artists including Roy Orbison and Patsy Cline, and has collaborated with Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and Neil Young.

Willie Nelson’s new album My Way will be released on 14th September. You can pre-order the album here: https://willienelson.lnk.to/MyWay.

Laura Cooney
Laura Cooney
Laura has been writing for Entertainment Focus since 2016, mainly covering music (particularly country and pop) and television, and is based in South West London.

Must Read

Advertisement