Willie Nelson Readies a Toast to Merle Haggard
No rest for the Willie. Along with still constantly touring at 92, he’s also good for about a two-per-year clip of new albums, usually comprised of one more original album, and one tribute album. Well in 2025, Willie will officially release two tribute albums. On his latest, Pancho will pay tribute to Lefty in an album called Workin’ Man: Willie Sings Merle.
To be released on November 7th via Sony’s Legacy Recordings, Willie Nelson will unveil 11 Merle Haggard classics done Willie style. Don’t expect any deep cuts on this record. Hand selected by Willie himself, he goes for all the hits, including “Swinging Doors,” “Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down,” “Mama Tried,” and “Okie From Muskogee.” You can see the full track list below.
There is a tie-in to why Willie Nelson decided to release this album now. A career-spanning documentary on the life and career of Merle Haggard called Highway 99: A Double Album directed by Ethan Hawke premiered last week at the Telluride Film Festival, with Willie Nelson featured as a primary interview subject.
Willie Nelson has a long history of recording tribute albums. 2016 saw Willie pay tribute to Gershwin with Summertime. 2018 saw Willie toast Frank Sinatra with the album My Way, and again in 2021 with That’s Life. In 2023, Willie paid tribute to Harlan Howard with I Don’t Know a Thing About Love. Then earlier this year Willie released Oh What A Beautiful World full of songs from Rodney Crowell.
One interesting wrinkle about this tribute album is some of the songs were recorded some years ago. Produced by Willie with longtime collaborator Mickey Raphael, the album was recorded at Nelson’s Pedernales Studios in Austin and features the last recordings he did with longtime Family band members “Sister Bobbie” Nelson and Paul English. Paul passed away in 2020, and Bobbie died in 2022.
Of course Mickey Raphael also appears on harmonica, along with Kevin Smith on bass, and Paul English’s brother Billy English on drums and percussion. Ahead of the album, Willie Nelson has released his version of the Merle haggard classic “Workin’ Man Blues” that was a #1 hit for Merle in 1969.
Workin’ Man: Willie Sings Merle is now available for pre-order.
Track List:
1. Workin’ Man Blues
2. Silver Wings
3. Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down
4. Today I Started Loving You Again
5. Swinging Doors
6. Okie From Muskogee
7. Mama Tried
8. I Think I’ll Just Stay Here And Drink
9. Somewhere Between
10. If We Make It Through December
11. Ramblin’ Fever
September 4, 2025 @ 6:57 pm
And Willie’s 1977 tribute to Lefty Frizzell “To Lefty From Willie.”
September 5, 2025 @ 8:06 am
And “Willie Sings Kristofferson”
September 4, 2025 @ 7:45 pm
Even though I’m a long time Willie fan, I’ve skipped the last couple of Willie albums but this is one I’ll definitely purchase. I’ve always loved Hag’s classic hits and the Willie versions will likely be pretty good.
September 4, 2025 @ 9:34 pm
Willie sounds OK here. I don’t know how much assistance is required from the recording engineer to tweak or clear up his voals now, but it sounds like Willie. (I think the duet Willie did last year with Duane Allen on the Oak Ridge Boys’ cut of “I Thought It Was You,” is as close to Willie in his natural state, without editing assistance as we’re going to hear.)
I like the jazzy touch that he gives to “Workin’ Man Blues,” because the song can come off as a bit political and mean when done totally straight.
It’s neat that Willie is able to do this: record and issue multiple albums every year. Most of even the core ’90s country music stars have essentially stopped recording new material, either because they’ve lost interest, or more likely, they can’t fing any sort of legitimate record label that wants to record them and issue and promote their music.
Apparently, Willie’s fans are still interested in hearing new recordings from him in his 90s that it’s wortth it for Legacy Recordings to keep doing these projects.
September 4, 2025 @ 10:01 pm
For the record, there is a good chance, some, most, or all of these recordings are from at least five years ago, if not older. So that could affect how Willie voice is rendered on the album.
September 5, 2025 @ 7:49 am
I saw Dwight Yoakam in May 2017, which was about a year after Merle’s death. I’m thinking he played about a handful of Merle songs that night. He also mentioned talking to WIllie and how Willie told him he was either working on or planning a Merle tribute album. Dwight asked him if it was going to include “you know what” (i.e., Okie from Muskogee). Willie said something like “oh yeah.”
September 5, 2025 @ 9:44 am
“Workin’ Man Blues” is “a bit political and mean” — because in one line the Hag says he prefers work to welfare? I do remember hard-core college leftists hating the song when it came out in the late ’60s. I reminded them that Haggard was the poet of the common man, which really got them spitting nails.
September 5, 2025 @ 3:42 am
I guess there’s an endless list of great Merle songs to choose from, but I for one would have liked to see “The Way I Am” and “Kern River” on this album.
September 5, 2025 @ 10:42 am
“The Way It Was in ’51,” maybe Merle’s most overlooked, underrated song, a masterpiece about a nation on the brink of profound change.
I know that vanished world was hardly a utopia, but at least in those days “Hank and Lefty crowded every jukebox.” That’s something.
September 5, 2025 @ 8:54 am
I’m sure whatever take on “Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down” shows up here will be fine, but I’m suddenly imagining that as a track on Phases and Stages, with Willie’s voice then and that band and that song cycle. The mind reels.
Willie and Merle are forever associated in my mind because I wore out the Pancho and Lefty LP in my youth, and I’m looking forward to this release.
September 5, 2025 @ 11:08 am
This will be badass cool. The Hag and his music deserve to live on and Willie is a legend. I see no negatives here at all and I’ll look forward to hearing it. When Willie and the Hag played together a few years before Merle died it was awesome.
September 5, 2025 @ 1:05 pm
I read an article on this is Willie Nelson’s 115 album! Wow, so unbelievable, keep up the good work Willie, I can’t wait to get this album.