Willie Nelson - My Way

Willie Nelson has spent seventy years refusing to do what Nashville told him, which is how he ended up as one of the most beloved American musicians alive. The guitar is beaten to pieces, the phrasing lands behind the beat, and nobody else sounds remotely like him.

Frank Sinatra and Willie Nelson were friends, toured together, and shared a habit of singing just behind the beat. My Way, released in 2018, is Nelson's tribute to him, and it won the Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.

Produced by longtime collaborator Buddy Cannon with lush, tasteful arrangements, it finds Nelson at eighty-five easing through "Fly Me to the Moon," "Summer Wind," "Night and Day," and a closing "My Way" that he makes sound less like a boast than a shrug. Trigger, his battered nylon-string guitar, still gets solos.

It is a warm, unhurried record that works equally well for country fans and standards collectors.

Pressed on 150-gram vinyl.