At 85, Willie Nelson’ isn’t letting any grass grow under him: The legendary singer and songwriter is releasing his second album of the year in September, a Frank Sinatra tribute outing called “My Way” on Sony’s Legacy label. The 11-track album was produced by Buddy Cannon and Matt Rollings and will be released on Sept. 14.
Along with the announcement came the album’s first single and video, “Summer Wind.”
While Nelson is one of the greatest American songwriters of the 20th century, this album finds him swinging through a set of standards and classics made famous by Sinatra, accompanied by the lush string and horn arrangements that the songs deserve, and in the spirit of Nelson’s classic 1978 album “Stardust,” which found him interpreting material from the Great American Songbook.
According to the announcement, Nelson and Sinatra were close friends and mutual admirers of each other’s work. In the 1980s, the pair performed on the same bill at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas and appeared together in a public service announcement for NASA’s Space Foundation.
“I learned a lot about phrasing listening to Frank,” Willie said recently in an interview for AARP magazine (June/July 2018). “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.”
Nelson, who cancelled some shows earlier this year due to illness, is back on the road through the end of this year; the “My Way” tracklist appears in full below:
- Fly Me To The Moon
- Summer Wind
- One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)
- A Foggy Day
- It Was A Very Good Year
- Blue Moon
- I’ll Be Around
- Night And Day
- What Is This Thing Called Love (with Norah Jones)
- Young At Heart
- My Way
Source : Variety
