Willie Nelson has announced a new album (his 77th solo studio album and his 154th album overall). Oh What a Beautiful World, coming on April 25, 2025, via Legacy Recordings, focuses on the songs of Rodney Crowell, the latest in Nelson’s storied history of focusing entire albums on a single songwriter’s work. It’s available for pre-order in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here. The album arrives days before Nelson’s 92nd birthday (on April 29).
More from the March 12 announcement: Nelson and Crowell are two Texas singer-songwriters whose careers have intersected often since Crowell first heard Nelson’s earliest songs on the radio and saw 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.
Produced by Nelson’s longtime collaborator Buddy Cannon and featuring an amazing backing band of Nashville gunslingers accompanying Nelson’s 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.
The album features recordings of 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), as well as ’90s songs 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). There are also early 2000’s cuts written for hit albums by Keith Urban and Tim McGraw as well as four cuts from Crowell’s 2010s albums.
Nelson continues to have a busy tour schedule. He co-headlines the 2025 edition of the Outlaw Music Festival tour with Bob Dylan, which begins May 13. Tickets are available here.
Willie Nelson Oh What a Beautiful World Track Listing
1. What Kind Of Love
2. Banks Of The Old Bandera
3. The Fly Boy & The Kid
4. Forty Miles From Nowhere
5. I Wouldn’t Be Me Without You
6. Making Memories Of Us
7. Oh What A Beautiful World (with Rodney Crowell)
8. Open Season On My Heart
9. Shame On The Moon
10. She’s Back In Town
11. Still Learning How To Fly
12. Stuff That Works
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