News / Life / Entertainment

Willie Nelson, 91, announces 153rd album, ‘Last Leaf on the Tree’

‘Last Leaf on the Tree’ includes originals, covers

By Karu F. Daniels, New York Daily News

Published: August 22, 2024, 5:59am

Willie Nelson performs July 4 at Freedom Mortgage Pavilion in Camden, N.J. (Elizabeth Robertson/The Philadelphia Inquirer)

NEW YORK — At 91 years old, Willie Nelson is proving he’s still going strong as the country music veteran announced Thursday the upcoming release of his 153rd album.

Titled “Last Leaf on the Tree,” the opus — due out Nov. 1 — will feature covers of songs previously recorded by rock legends, indie folk heroes and soulful jazz singers like Keith Richards, Neil Young, Nina Simone and Beck.

The album will also feature some original material written by the singer and his son, Micah Nelson, who has previously performed with his father and also serves as the record’s producer.

“The result is a gorgeously cohesive rumination on loss, love and world-weary hope, perfectly complemented by spare and spooky musical production,” Thursday’s announcement said.

Local Angle

Willie Nelson lived in Vancouver in the 1950s after landing a job as a country-music disc jockey at KVAN.

“That’s where I found work. Fact is, that’s where I found myself,” Nelson writes in his 2015 memoir, “It’s a Long Story.” “In a matter of weeks, I went from being a vagrant in a boxcar to an on-the-air personality.”

He owned his first home here and his second daughter was born here in January 1957.

Nelson also cut his first record in Vancouver, “in a guy’s house or a room in his garage,” he said in an interview with The Columbian in 1997, when he performed at the Clark County Fair.

Nelson sang in clubs on both sides of the river. A visiting agent/songwriter heard his songs while promoting another singer at the radio station. She told him that working in Vancouver was not the way to become a star.

Nelson left KVAN after it rejected his request for another $100 a week, he recalls in “It’s a Long Story.” He packed his guitar and family and headed to Texas, then on to Nashville.

The album has already yielded its first single, “Last Leaf,” on which the 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee delivers a melancholy rendition of the 2011 Tom Waits ballad of the same name while playing his “trusty acoustic guitar Trigger.”

Other contributors on the album include Willie’s longtime harmonica player Mickey Raphael, seven-time Grammy winner Daniel Lanois, Senegalese percussionist Magatte Sow and former Doors drummer John Densmore.

Co-headlining the final leg of this year’s Outlaw Music Festival Tour with Bob Dylan, John Mellencamp and more, Willie Nelson & Family will conclude their trek on Sept. 21 at the annual Farm Aid benefit concert in Saratoga Springs.

“Last Leaf on the Tree” is available for preorder on Willie Nelson’s website, Amazon Music, or through your local record store.

Local Angle

Related Stories