SONY/Legacy Recordings to Release New Willie Nelson Album 'Band of Brothers', 6/17
By: Caryn Robbins May. 06, 2014
Legacy Recordings is proud to announce the release of Band of Brothers, the new Willie Nelson studio album premiering 14 performances including nine brand-new songs composed by America's quintessential pop/country songwriter. Willie Nelson's Band of Brothers will be available Tuesday, June 17.
The much-anticipated successor To All The Girls... (which became Willie's first Top 10 album in more than three decades when it was released in October 2013) Band of Brothers is the artist's first album of predominately new original material in nearly two decades, debuting the master tunesmith's first major batch of newly-penned songs since his Spirit album in 1996."I got on kind of a writing kick," Willie Nelson said recently,"it's good to be writing again."
The influential songwriterwhose early successes brought pop and country together with unforgettable standards like "Crazy" (Patsy Cline), "Hello Walls" (Faron Young), "Funny How Time Slips Away" (Billy Walker), "Night Life" (Ray Price) and many othershas added nine new essential songs to his classic catalog. One of Willie's most personal albums to-date, the songs on Band of Brothers range from the introspective ("The Wall" and "Send Me a Picture") to the rollicking ("Wives and Girlfriends" and "Used To Her").
A new video for "The Wall," one of the key tracks on Band of Brothers, debuted exclusively on RollingStone.com."The Wall" audio track will be available at all digital stores beginning Tuesday, May 6 and will be available for immediate download for fans who pre-order Band of Brothers.
Rounding out the album are five songs, penned by others, which compliment and unite the album's sonic textures and lyric themes. Included are Willie's interpretations of Vince Gill's Whenever You Come Around", Billy Joe Shaver's "The Git Go" (a duet with Jamey Johnson) and the appropriately-titled "Songwriter," written by Gordie Sampson and Bill Anderson.
All 14 tracks on Band of Brothers are new recordings and none of the songs have been previously recorded by Willie Nelson.
Working again with producer Buddy Cannon, who helmed Willie's first three Legacy releases, and a band featuring Jim "Moose" Brown (keyboards), Eddie Bayers (drums), Kevin "Swine" Grantt (bass), Bobby Terry (guitar), Tommy White (steel guitar), Mickey Raphael (harmonica) and Trigger (Willie's guitar), Willie Nelson recorded the bulk of Band of Brothers during sessions at Sound Emporium Studios in Nashville with additional recording at Pedernales Studio, Austin, Texas and The Hit Factory Criteria, Miami, Florida. Recording sessions took place between October 2013 and March 2014.
"When all the songs have been written/When all of the music has played/When the curtain comes down we'll still be around/To make sure the musicians are paid, cause," Willie sings on the album's title track, an anthemic salute to the universal camaraderie of music and the uncompromising vision of a great American songwriter:
"We're a band of brothers and sisters and whatever
On a mission to break all the rules
And I know you love me 'cause I love you too
But you can't tell me what to do"
Willie Nelson/Band of Brothers - tracklisting
1. Bring It On (Willie Nelson/Buddy Cannon)
2. Guitar in the Corner (Willie Nelson/Buddy Cannon)
3. The Wall (Willie Nelson/Buddy Cannon)
4. Whenever You Come Around (Vince Gill/Pete Wasner)
5. Wives and Girlfriends (Willie Nelson/Buddy Cannon)
6. I Thought I Left You (Willie Nelson/Buddy Cannon)
7. Send Me a Picture (Willie Nelson/Buddy Cannon)
8. Used to Her (Willie Nelson/Buddy Cannon)
9. The Git Go (Billy Joe Shaver/Gary Nicholson)
10. Band of Brothers (Willie Nelson/Buddy Cannon)
11. Hard to Be an Outlaw (Billy Joe Shaver)
12. Crazy Like Me (Dennis Morgan/Shawn Camp/Billy Burnette)
13. The Songwriters (Gordie Sampson/Bill Anderson)
14. I've Got a Lot of Traveling to Do (Willie Nelson/Buddy Cannon)
A stunning diversity of artists have covered Willie's compositions, revealing the transformative range of his songwriting genius. Ray Price and B.B. King recorded versions of "Night Life." "Funny How Time Slips Away" was a 1964 R&B and pop hit for Joe Hinton. Elvis Presley recorded it, as did Al Green, Tom Jones, Perry Como, Georgie Fame and Bryan Ferry. In 1963 Roy Orbison made Willie's Christmas ballad "Pretty Paper" his own. George Jones and Merle Haggard had a hit duet with "Yesterday's Wine."
Esther Phillips gave "Hello Walls" an R&B treatment. For years, the late sportscaster Don Meredith occasionally sang Willie's "The Party's Over" during his commentary during ABC's Monday Night Football. Diana Krall recorded a jazz treatment of "Crazy," a tune later tackled by Chaka Khan. Jazz icon, Miles Davis, an admirer, composed an instrumental titled "Willie Nelson."
New generations continue revisiting his material including the Supersuckers, who recorded "Bloody Mary Morning." Jello Biafra took on "Still Is Still Moving To Me" and the Little Willies, the Norah Jones-led country band named in his honor, recorded "I Gotta Get Drunk" and "Permanently Lonely."
Band of Brothers is the fourth new Willie Nelson album since his historic deal with Legacy Recordings was announced in February 2012.
Heroes, his first for Legacy, was released May 2012, and spent five consecutive weeks at #1 on the Americana Radio Chart.
The critically-heralded Let's Face The Music And Dance, Willie's second Legacy album, was released on April 16, 2013 (two weeks before Willie's 80th birthday) and featured a range of pop, rock, jazz and country classics chosen by Nelson.
To All The Girls..., Willie Nelson's third studio release for Legacy Recordings, entered the Billboard 200 at #9 last October, the artist's highest position on the nation's popular albums chart since Always On My Mind peaked there for three weeks at #2 in 1982. The album, a collection of newly recorded duets between American musical legend Willie Nelson and an A-list roster of contemporary pop-country women singers, debuted at #2 on the Top Country Albums chart.
The artist's third full-length album of new music to be released in a 16 month period, To All The Girls... celebrated Willie's 80th birthday year with duet performances of classic songs from America's country, pop and gospel repertoire.
The pop country patriarch's recently penned rollicking memoir, "Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die - Musings from the Road" (published by HarperCollins in May 2012) hit the New York Times bestselling non-fiction list.
About Willie Nelson
With a six-decade career and a catalog of more than 200 albums to his credit, the iconic Texas singer-songwriter Willie Nelson has earned a permanent position in pop music's pantheon with songs combining the sophistication of Tin Pan Alley with the rough-and-tumble grit and emotional honesty of country music. He brought pop and country together on the radio in the early 1960s with unforgettable songs like "Crazy" (Patsy Cline), "Hello Walls" (Faron Young), "Funny How Time Slips Away" (Billy Walker), "Night Life" (Ray Price) and others and, by the mid-1970s, had become a superstar in his own right as a prime mover of a revolutionary and thriving outlaw country music scene. The Red Headed Stranger, Willie's first album for Columbia Records in 1975, catapulted the artist to the front ranks of popularity, making his a name familiar in country and city households across America and around-the-world.
A seven-time Grammy Award winner, Willie Nelson has received numerous accolades including American Music Awards, Academy of Country Music Awards, Country Music Association Awards and others. He is a co-founder of Farm Aid, an annual series of fundraising events which began as an all-star benefit concert in 1985 to raise money for American family farmers. He continues to lobby against horse slaughter and produces his own blend of biodiesel fuel. An old-school road-dog troubadour with new school wheels, Willie plays concerts year-round, tirelessly touring on Honeysuckle Rose III (he rode his first two buses into the ground), taking his music and fans to places that are always worth the ride.
The very first musician to perform on the premiere episode of Austin City Limits in 1974, Willie Nelson was inducted into the inaugural class of the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame by fellow Texan Matthew McConaughey on Saturday, April 26, 2014. "There would be no Austin City Limits without Willie Nelson," McConaughey told the audience assembled at the University of Texas at Austin, the original home of what is now America's longest-running televised music program.
Willie Nelson, who turned 81 on April 29/April 30, is an American original, a sublime singer, master tunesmith and outlaw country's most enduring archetype.
SOURCE SONY/Legacy Recordings
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