It’s More Than Music—Willie Nelson’s New Album Feels Like a Letter Straight to Merle Haggard’s Memory. ML
In the twilight of his extraordinary career, Willie Nelson is turning back toward the friendships and stories that shaped his life. His new album, Workin’ Man: Willie Sings Merle, due November 7, is a tender tribute to his late friend Merle Haggard, whose songs painted the everyday struggles and small victories of American life.
Featuring 11 Haggard-penned tracks, including classics like “Okie From Muskogee,” “Silver Wings,” and “Swingin’ Doors,” the album captures Nelson’s unmistakable warmth and Haggard’s blue-collar poetry — a reunion of two voices that once defined a generation.
The Weight of Memory
For Nelson, this isn’t just another project. At 92, the outlaw troubadour is reflecting on the people who built his musical world. The album marks the final recordings with his sister Bobbie Nelson, whose piano was the heartbeat of his Family Band, and Paul English, his trusted drummer and companion for over 50 years. Their presence turns Workin’ Man into something deeply human — not only a tribute to Haggard, but a meditation on love, loss, and the passage of time.
“It’s like sitting around the table with old friends,” one insider described. “Willie’s not just singing Merle’s songs — he’s reliving them.”
Revisiting the Heart of a Song
The album’s first single, “Somewhere Between,” shows Nelson at his most vulnerable. Originally written by Haggard and Bonnie Owens, the track captures the ache of love that exists somewhere between closeness and goodbye. Nelson’s rendition is raw and unhurried, his voice carrying every ounce of the song’s yearning:
“Somewhere between your heart and mine,
There’s a love I can’t understand.”
It’s the kind of performance that reminds listeners how effortlessly Nelson finds truth inside another songwriter’s words.
A Life of Tributes and Truth
Over the past decade, Nelson has recorded several tribute albums — honoring Ray Price, Harlan Howard, and even Frank Sinatra — but Workin’ Man: Willie Sings Merle feels different. It’s not just an homage to another artist; it’s a farewell to a friend who understood the same highways, heartbreaks, and honky-tonks.
Produced by Mickey Raphael at Nelson’s Pedernales Studios, the album features a small circle of longtime collaborators: Kevin Smith, Billy English, and the late Paul English. The result is intimate, soulful, and unmistakably Willie.
Haggard once called Nelson “the last of the free spirits,” and listening to Workin’ Man proves that both men were cut from the same cloth — dreamers, rebels, and poets of the open road.
