Fans and critics have spoken admiringly about how Leonard Cohen produced memorable music until shortly before his death at 83, and how Bob Dylan manages to maintain a busy touring schedule at that age. But Cohen and Dylan represent the younger generation compared with Willie Nelson, whose latest album arrived four days before his 92nd birthday. Moreover, his activities and accomplishments in the past few years have been multitudinous—more than you might expect from many artists half his age.
Nelson, who performed at a pair of star-studded 2023 concerts to mark his 90th birthday, has booked more than three dozen shows for between now and the end of this summer, including his annual Fourth of July Picnic in Austin, Tex. Since 2020, also, he has added nine studio albums to a discography that now includes 77 such LPs, not to mention an approximately equal number of concert recordings and anthologies. In the past few years, he has been nominated for four Grammys and won two, for Best Country Solo Performance and Best Country Album.
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As those wins suggest, he is not simply still making music—he’s making some of the best music of his life. For evidence, look no further than his latest release, Oh What a Beautiful World, which he devotes entirely to songs written (or in three cases, co-written) by the formidable Rodney Crowell.
This is not the first time Nelson has focused an album on the work of another writer or performer. His previous releases include To Lefty [Frizzell] from Willie (1977), Willie Nelson Sings Kristofferson (1979), You Don’t Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker (2006), Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin (2016), For the Good Times: A Tribute to Ray Price (2016) and I Don’t Know a Thing About Love: The Songs of Harlan Howard (2023). Nor is this the first time Nelson has tackled Crowell’s compositions. He has performed them in concert and on albums for decades, most recently on 2024’s The Border, for which Crowell co-wrote two numbers, including the terrific title cut.
Nelson features a dozen tunes on Oh What a Wonderful World, which, like more than a dozen of his other albums, was winningly produced by his frequent collaborator, Buddy Cannon. Cannon and his daughter Melonie are among three background singers on the set, which also showcases Nelson’s distinctive guitar work and complementary contributions from guitarists Bobby Terry and James Mitchell, keyboardist Jim “Moose” Brown, harmonica player Mickey Raphael, drummer Fred Eltringham and bassist Glenn Worf, who is best known for his work with Mark Knopfler. Most of these names should be familiar to anyone who has read the credits on other recent Nelson CDs.
The program includes “Making Memories of Us,” a country chart-topper for Keith Urban in 2005, and “Shame on the Moon,” which reached #2 on the pop charts in Bob Seger’s 1982 version. Some of the other numbers are less famous, but all of them offer reminders of what a fine songwriter Crowell is. And there’s no better interpreter for his compositions than Nelson, who seems like a perfect fit for the lyrics and whose warm, weathered tenor and nuanced delivery pack an emotional punch.
The passionate, album-opening “What Kind of Love,” which Crowell wrote with Will Jennings and Roy Orbison, sets a high bar, but no low points follow. Indeed, the program offers triumph after triumph, including “Stuff That Works,” which Crowell co-wrote with the late Guy Clark; the affecting “Forty Miles from Nowhere,” which finds its protagonist weeping “at the bottom of the world”; “Open Season on My Heart,” where “days go by like flying bricks/Leave gaping holes too big to fix”; the honky-tonk-flavored “She’s Back in Town”; and the sweet, melodic title cut, where Crowell duets with Nelson.
When someone has released more than 150 albums, you hesitate to call any one of them the best. Suffice to say that while Nelson’s list of five-star releases is long, it’s hard to imagine that any of them outshine this one.
Willie Nelson (Photo by Pamela Springsteen, used with permission)
Oh What a Wonderful World, released on April 25, 2025, via Legacy Recordings, is available in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here. The album arrived days before Nelson’s 92nd birthday (on April 29).
A top editor at leading consumer and trade magazines for more than 40 years, Jeff has interviewed dozens of musical luminaries, including Bruce Springsteen, Steve Van Zandt, Roger McGuinn, John Sebastian, Wolfman Jack, Tommy James, Tom Waits, the Righteous Brothers, and the members of Steely Dan.
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