Oh What A Beautiful World

Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, will release Willie Nelson's new studio album, "Oh What A Beautiful World" in all configurations on April 25th, 2025. Released just in time for his 92nd birthday, the album will be available digitally, on CD and in 2 vinyl formats, black vinyl widely and white vinyl exclusively through Willie’s webstore.

"Oh What A Beautiful World", his 154th album, according to 'Texas Monthly's Interactive All Willie Nelson Albums Ranked' list, and 77th solo studio album, premieres Willie's new interpretations of 12 classic songs written or co-written by Rodney Crowell, the latest in Nelson’s storied history of focusing entire albums on a single songwriter’s work. The 2 Texas singer songwriters’ careers have often intersected, beginning with Crowell 1st hearing Nelson’s earliest songs on the radio and seeing his shows in Houston in the mid 1960's. Willie 1st recorded a Rodney Crowell song in 1983 and last did so 40 years later for 2024’s "The Border".

The 1st single is also the album's title track, “Oh What A Beautiful World”, featuring special guest Rodney Crowell himself in a duet with Nelson. Originally appearing as the closing track on Crowell's 2014 opus "Tarpaper Sky", "Oh What A Beautiful World" evokes the poignancy of passing time while Rodney and Willie's new interpretation of the song shares a fresh sense of the deep human need to appreciate the beauty in each moment life has to offer.

12 of Crowell’s compositions from the last 50 years were handpicked for the album. Nelson’s new performances include 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, 90's tracks like “What Kind Of Love“, co-written by Will Jennings and based on a Roy Orbison melody, and “Stuff That Works”, co-written with Guy Clark, early 2000’s cuts written for hit albums by Keith Urban and Tim McGraw, 4 cuts from Crowell’s beloved 2010's albums and a cut released as recently as 2021.

Produced by longtime musical collaborator Buddy Cannon, "Oh What A Beautiful World" showcases Willie Nelson accompanied by an esteemed studio band featuring Bobby Terry, James Mitchell , Jim Brown, Mickey Raphael, Fred Eltringham and Glenn Worf, with background vocals by Wyatt Beard, Buddy Cannon, and Melonie Cannon.

Willie Nelson & Family will also be on the road again this year for the 'Outlaw Music Festival 10th Anniversary Tour' with an all star lineup featuring Willie, Bob Dylan and many more. Plus Nelson just announced his annual '4th Of July Picnic' concert event which returns to Austin this year and features Dylan, The Avett Brothers, The Mavericks, Asleep At The Wheel and Tami Neilson.