www.stillisstillmoving.com

This new collection is a career spanner jam-packed with 25 songs across two LPs, with each era of Willie’s illustrious six decade career chronicled. It includes massive hits like “On The Road Again,” “Always On My Mind” and “Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain” next to a number of his 21st century gems, including latter day classics like “Ride Me Back Home” and “Roll Me Up.” It features classic collaborations with the likes of Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings and Julio Iglesias, Willie’s early versions of songs made famous by others in the early 60s like “Crazy” and “Night Life,” alongside interpretations of others’ songs that he made his own from Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust” to Arlo Guthrie’s “City Of New Orleans” to Pearl Jam’s “Just Breathe.”

The exclusive bundles include a Willie Nelson Christmas Ornament and a Greatest Hits Guitar Pick Tin with picks!

Pre-Order Yours Today

On September 15, Willie Nelson will release a new studio album (his 151st!) — Bluegrass  featuring Willie performing 12 of his favorite songs that he wrote, all classics, with a bluegrass ensemble.

Digital and CD configurations of Willie Nelson’s Bluegrass may be pre-ordered HERE

“You Left Me a Long, Long Time Ago,” the first track from Bluegrass, is available LISTEN HERE

An exclusive collector’s edition of Bluegrass, pressed on 12″ blue vinyl, will be available Friday, September 29.

Produced by longtime musical collaborator Buddy Cannon, Bluegrass features musicians including Barry Bales (upright bass), Ron Block (banjo), Aubrey Haynie (fiddle), Rob Ickes (dobro), Josh Martin (acoustic guitar), Mickey Raphael (harmonica), Seth Taylor (mandolin), Bobby Terry (acoustic guitar, gut string guitar), Dan Tyminski (mandolin); backing vocals are provided by Wyatt Beard, Buddy Cannon, and Melonie Cannon. 

Bluegrass features cover art by Micah Nelson (Willie’s son, a multimedia artist and musician), whose previous artwork for Willie includes the albums I Don’t Know a Thing About Love and First Rose of Spring as well as 2013’s autobiographical New York Times bestseller Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings from the Road.

Willie’s new album is a salute to the Appalachian old-time string band music which crystalized into a genre and was given a name by Kentucky songwriter/performer/recording artist Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, whose post-war recordings profoundly influenced Willie’s songwriting sensibilities and the direction of American country music in general. On Bluegrass, his first album tribute to the genre, Willie Nelson brings together a dozen songs connecting his personal history to his lifelong love for roots music. Using his own catalog as source material, in the spirit of traditional bluegrass sourcing hillbilly folk music, Willie chose songs combining the kind of strong melodies, memorable storylines and tight ensemble-interplay found in traditional bluegrass interpretations of the roots (from European melodies to African rhythms) of American folk songs. With Bluegrass, Willie uncovers new truths in his own songs.

In a career packed with highlights, 2023 is proving a banner year for Willie Nelson, who turned 90 on April 29.

“Wille Nelson & Family,” a new five-part film documentary series directed by Thom Zimny and Oren Moverman, premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival 2023 and is slated for broadcast later this year.

“Long Story Short: Willie Nelson 90,” a star-studded two-day concert celebrating Willie’s 90th birthday, was held at the Hollywood Bowl on April 29-April 30. The once-in-a-lifetime event showcased performances from an extraordinary range of artists who’ve been influenced and inspired by Willie and his music. “Willie Nelson 90,” a film made during the Hollywood Bowl Shows, enjoyed a limited theatrical run at select theaters in early June.

Willie took home two GRAMMYs at the 65th Annual GRAMMY Awards in 2023: Best Country Solo Performance (“Live Forever”) (from Live Forever: A Tribute to Billy Joe Shaver) and his first Best Country Album (A Beautiful Time) trophy. Over the course of his career, Willie Nelson has earned 56 GRAMMY nominations and 12 GRAMMY Awards.

Willie Nelson is one of the 2023 Inductees into The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. “This year’s incredible group of Inductees reflects the diverse artists and sounds that define rock & roll,” said John Sykes, Chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation. “We are honored that this November’s Induction Ceremony in New York will coincide with two milestones in music culture; the 90th birthday of Willie Nelson and the 50th Anniversary of the birth of Hip Hop.” The 38th Annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will take place Friday, November 3rd at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York with an HBO broadcast to follow.

Willie Nelson is bringing his family and friends on the road for the largest-ever Outlaw Music Festival Tour to-date showcasing a can’t miss lineup of stars for a series of once-in-a-lifetime shows this summer and fall. Check out the 2023 Outlaw Music Festival Tour details, HERE.

Willie Nelson – Bluegrass Track list

1. No Love Around
2. Somebody Pick Up My Pieces
3. Good Hearted Woman (cowritten with Waylon Jennings)
4. Sad Songs And Waltzes
5. Home Motel
6. You Left Me A Long, Long Time Ago
7. Yesterday’s Wine
8. Bloody Mary Morning
9. Slow Down Old World
10. Still Is Still Moving To Me
11. On The Road Again
12. Man With The Blues

Willie Nelson (left) and fellow songwriter Harlan Howard with their boss Hal Smith, the owner of the Pamper Music publishing company, on July 15, 1961.” 

www.texasmonthly.com
by: John Spong

Even hard-core Willie nerds sometimes forget that his spear-tip position in the mid-seventies’ outlaw movement was actually the second time he revolutionized country music. The first came at the dawn of the sixties, when he signed a publishing deal with Ray Price’s Pamper Music company, joining a writing staff that included fellow young-gun composers Harlan Howard and Hank Cochran, both of whom were also recent Nashville transplants.

The three wrote songs that were more sophisticated, both melodically and lyrically, than what had come before—and, arguably, just better—as evinced by Patsy Cline’s two massive pop-crossover hits in 1961, Harlan and Hank’s “I Fall to Pieces” and Willie’s “Crazy.” Those tunes, brought to life by Owen Bradley’s high-polish production, helped set the template for the cosmopolitan Nashville sound that would dominate the decade. And though Willie was the only one of the three writers to become a household name as a performer, the other two would continue penning classics until well into the eighties, including “Why Not Me,” a Harlan cowrite that the Judds took to number one in 1984, and “The Chair,” a Hank cowrite that George Strait rode to the same spot a year later.

Read complete article at Texas Monthly.

NEW YORK – Willie Nelson released his new studio album I Don’t Know A Thing About Love today on Legacy Recordings, a division of Sony Music Entertainment. Digital and CD configurations of I Don’t Know A Thing About Love are available now, while a vinyl edition will come exclusively from Vinyl Me, Please. Pressed on Blue Smoke vinyl, with lacquers cut by Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound, this is the follow up to VMP’s recent VMP Anthology, The Story of Willie Nelson. To get the CD, stream the album, or pre-order the vinyl, please visit HERE.

With the release of I Don’t Know A Thing About Love, Willie Nelson brings his own perspective to the abiding musical legacy of Harlan Howard. For his new album, Willie Nelson and band recorded fresh interpretations of 10 classic compositions penned by the legendary American songwriter Harlan Howard, an early musical contemporary of Willie’s who famously defined a great country song as “three chords and the truth.” 

According to one authoritative running list this is Willie’s 150th album and you can check out where it lands on that list, Texas Monthly’s All 150 Willie Nelson Albums Ranked, HERE. The list has needed to be updated by seven albums since it was first published in 2020 and includes a brand new review of this album just published yesterday which states: “Willie repays that favor, and every country fan’s debt, to Harlan (Howard) with I Don’t Know a Thing About Love. It’s a tribute to one composer, a tradition that was once a Nashville staple…that has essentially been abandoned by every country star but Willie…. Willie worked on the record with producer Buddy Cannon, whose first chore was to come up with a list of potential songs…. The fact that those songs became hits in multiple eras with markedly different arrangements points to their timelessness. But for these recordings, Willie wanted to place them squarely in a mid-sixties honky-tonk….The result is almost certainly the countriest record that will be released in 2023.” 

Featuring cover art by Micah Nelson (Willie’s son), I Don’t Know A Thing About Love was produced by longtime musical collaborator Buddy Cannon and debuts 10 studio performances.  The band on the album includes Willie Nelson (Trigger, lead vocals), Larry Paxton (bass, tic tac bass), Lonnie Wilson (drums), Bobby Terry (acoustic guitar, electric guitar), James Mitchell (electric guitar), Mike Johnson (steel guitar), Mickey Raphael (harmonica), Jim “Moose” Brown (piano, synthesizer, B3 organ, Wurlitzer), Wyatt Beard (background vocals), and Melonie Cannon (background vocals).

In addition to the new album, the lineup for Nelson’s annual Luck Reunion was recently announced. Scheduled for March 16 and held in Willie’s backyard, this year’s event includes Willie Nelson and Family, Spoon, Jimmie Dale Gilmore & The West Texas Exiles, Guster, a Leon Russell Tribute featuring Beau Bedford, Robert Ellis & Friends, Particle Kid and more. Tickets are on sale now. For more information, please visit HERE

In April and in celebration of Willie’s 90th birthday, a two-night event, Long Story Short: Willie Nelson 90, a star-studded concert presented by Blackbird Presents will take place on Saturday and Sunday, April 29 and 30 at the legendary Hollywood Bowl. For complete show details, including information on travel packages, go to http://willienelson90.com.

Willie Nelson, “I Don’t Know A Thing About Love“
Track List:

1. Tiger By The Tail
2. The Chokin’ Kind
3. Excuse Me (I Think I’ve Got A Heartache)
4. Life Turned Her That Way
5. I Don’t Know A Thing About Love
6. Streets Of Baltimore
7. Busted
8. She Called Me Baby
9. Too Many Rivers
10. Beautiful Annabel Lee