You’ve just heard Willie Nelson sing for the first time—perhaps you attended a Farm Aid concert or stumbled upon a video—and liked what you heard: “Man, that’s some beautiful singing! That music really touched me.” Now you’re thinking it might be time to check out one of his albums. After all, his has been one of the most ubiquitous voices in American music for several decades.
You go online or take a ride to the used vinyl store downtown and… Whoa! Just how many albums has this pigtailed old guy made?! How can you possibly know where to begin?
The answer to your first question is—as of earlier this year—152, counting both solo and collaborative releases. To aid you with your other question, veteran music journalist Geoffrey Himes has come to the rescue. Willie Nelson: All the Albums: The Stories Behind the Music is a handsome hardcover book published on Oct. 7, 2025, by Quarto Publishing that’s stocked with factual details on every one of those albums, along with Himes’ analyses of the music within.
If you want to cheat so that you can simply solve that purchasing decision, Himes makes it easy in the book’s appendix by grading, in order of worthiness, each of Nelson’s official recordings—both the stand-alone albums (132 of the total) and (20 thus far) compilations. Eight of the former and two of the latter receive an A+, and any of them, ranging from the first-ranked Phases and Stages of 1974 to 2018’s Last Man Standing, would serve well as an intro to Willie World. (There are also a number of D’s and F’s—Himes is not afraid to be brutal.)
Willie Nelson, in an uncredited photo shared on his Facebook page on March 14, 2024
But there’s much more to the book than its numerical ranking, and while it probably helps to be familiar with at least some of Willie’s most significant work, even a Nelson neophyte could benefit from the author’s astute evaluations, both of the albums as a whole and the songs within. This reviewer has probably heard only half of the albums, give or take, but found Himes’ entries on some of the unheard and more obscure titles—and those that have totally evaded his radar—to be among the most informative and fascinating.
Following the relatively concise and insightful introduction, which provides both a biographical overview and Himes’ sharp general perspective on the work, the author gets down to business, digging into Nelson’s earliest output as a songwriter and sideman for other artists. Things get more serious in the mid-’60s when Nelson signs as a recording artist with RCA Records (which Himes labels “Purgatory” in his chapter heading), but it’s not until the 1970s, with albums like Shotgun Willie, Red Headed Stranger, the Great American Songbook covers masterpiece Stardust and the aforementioned Phases and Stages, that Nelson truly begins to emerge as a major force in American music.
Related: Our Album Rewind of Nelson’s Stardust
Himes gives each recording its due, incorporating quotes from period press coverage along with his own descriptions of lyrics and music. Of 1975’s Red Headed Stranger, a major, game-changing album—the first Nelson self-produced—that topped the country charts and reached #28 on the pop chart, Himes writes that the LP was “the leanest, starkest recording of Nelson’s career. It didn’t make sense to the suits in Nashville, but it made perfect sense to a rock ’n’ roll audience that was used to artists such as Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell going from quiet, acoustic guitars to noisy, full bands and back again.”
Related: Our Album Rewind of Red Headed Stranger
The narrative continues chronologically, paying equal attention to those albums that defined Nelson’s career and those that flopped—often for good reason. The artist’s many confusing collaborative efforts and compilations are duly sorted, and Himes also tosses in sidebars on some projects that fall outside of the designation “official” but are worthy of acknowledgement nonetheless.
For each album, in addition to the larger overview, Himes provides a boxed, more capsulized peek into the vitals, including such information as its recording and release dates, record label, the number of Nelson compositions included (you’d be surprised how many have none—he is a master interpreter of others’ songs) and chart performance. The book is also lavishly illustrated with period photos of Nelson, each album cover, posters, ticket stubs, etc. And although the prime focus throughout is on the music, Himes never forgets to let the reader in on what was going on in Nelson’s life at the time—why he would choose to write and/or record the music he did.
Sample pages from All the Albums via Quarto Publishing.
Willie Nelson is 92 years old as of this writing, and he’s still active, although he’s had to slow down a bit. There’s already been one more release since the book was finished, Workin’ Man, a tribute to Merle Haggard, so All the Albums: The Stories Behind the Music isn’t quite comprehensive. Maybe someday it’ll get a fresh printing that’ll wrap the tale, but the way Willie’s going, that may be a while yet.
Listen to “What Kind of Love,” a track from Nelson’s 2025 release Oh What a Beautiful World
All the Albums: The Stories Behind the Music is available in the U.S. here, in Canada here and in the U.K. here.
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