Heroes Willie Nelson

• 1A Horse Called Music04:37
• 2Roll Me Up03:25
• 3That's All There Is To This Song03:20
• 4No Place To Fly05:07
• 5Every Time He Drinks He Thinks of Her02:48
• 6Come On Up To The House05:16
• 7Hero04:38
• 8My Window Faces The South02:33
• 9The Sound Of Your Memory06:10
• 10Cold War With You04:40
• 11Just Breathe04:20
• 12Home In San Antone04:09
• 13Come On Back Jesus03:24
• 14The Scientist05:30
• Total Runtime59:57

Info for Heroes

Returning to the Columbia/Sony family after nearly two decades away, Willie Nelson once again tries to be everything to everybody on 2012's Heroes, an appealingly misshapen collection of classics, contemporaries, and originals. Heroes -- its title signifying no great concept -- is roughly divided into quarters, with part of the album devoted to the Western swing and Texas country he's always loved to sing, part consisting of new songs from Willie, part originals from his son Lukas, and part covers of newer, rock-oriented tunes from the likes of Tom Waits, Eddie Vedder, and Chris Martin.

Each of these categories is a bit hit-or-miss, either succumbing to cutesy novelty (the dope-smoking anthem 'Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die,' complete with country cadences from a non-rapping Snoop Dogg) or laziness, and there's a wee bit too much Lukas Nelson scattered throughout the record, with the son of the father singing on no less than nine of the album's 14 songs.

This can be too much of a strong spice, obscuring the overall flavor of the music, but Lukas contributes a couple of the record's best songs in 'Every Time He Drinks He Thinks of Her' and 'The Sound of Your Memory,' songs that fit well next to a quite beautiful version of Vedder's 'Just Breathe' and yet another strong, swinging rendition of 'My Window Faces the South.'

And so Heroes kind of winds up summarizing all that's good and bad about Willie as he approaches his 80th birthday: he's open to everything but has no innate editor, so he whiffs as often as he connects, but when he does connect, it's a wonder to behold...and somehow he can still surprise whenever he sings those old songs.“ (Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AMG)

Willie Nelson, guitar, vocals
Lukas Nelson, vocals, guitar, electric guitar
Micah Nelson, vocals
Billy Joe Shaver, vocals
Ray Price, vocals
Snoop Dogg, vocals
Kris Kristofferson, vocals
Merle Haggard, vocals
Jamey Johnson, vocals
Sheryl Crow, vocals
Buddy Cannon, bass, acoustic guitar, background vocals on 'Heroes'
Melonie Cannon, background vocals on 'Heroes'
Mickey Raphael, harmonica
Butch Carr, synthesizer
Steve Brewster, drums
Jim Brown, piano, Wurlitzer, B-3 organ
Tony Creasman, drums
Kevin Grantt, bass
Mike Johnson, steel guitar
Lance Miller, background vocals on 'Heroes'
Paul Shaffer, B-3 organ
Bobby Terry, electric guitar, acoustic guitar

Recorded at Big Gassed Studios, Blackbird Studios, Brewbeat Studio, Nashville, TN, Cannon Productions, DSR, Hollywood, CA
Engineered and mixed by Butch Carr, Justin Stanley, Jeremy Brown, T.W. Cargile, John 'Ace' Otten
Mastering by Andrew Mendelson
Produced by Buddy Cannon

Willie Nelson
With a six-decade career and a catalog of more than 200 albums to his credit, the iconic Texas singer-songwriter Willie Nelsonhas earned a permanent position in pop music’s pantheon with songs combining the sophistication of Tin Pan Alley with the rough-and-tumble grit and emotional honesty of country music. He brought pop and country together on the radio in the early 1960s with unforgettable songs like “Crazy” (Patsy Cline), “Hello Walls” (Faron Young), “Funny How Time Slips Away” (Billy Walker), “Night Life” (Ray Price) and others and, by the mid-1970s, had become a superstar in his own right as a prime mover of a revolutionary and thriving outlaw country music scene. The Red Headed Stranger, Willie’s first album for Columbia Records in 1975, catapulted the artist to the front ranks of popularity, making his a name familiar in country and city households across America and around-the-world.

A seven-time Grammy Award winner, Willie Nelson has received numerous accolades including American Music Awards, Academy of Country Music Awards, Country Music Association Awards and others. He is a co-founder of Farm Aid, an annual series of fundraising events which began as an all-star benefit concert in 1985 to raise money for American family farmers. He continues to lobby against horse slaughter and produces his own blend of biodiesel fuel. An old-school road-dog troubadour with new school wheels, Willie plays concerts year-round, tirelessly touring on Honeysuckle Rose III (he rode his first two buses into the ground), taking his music and fans to places that are always worth the ride.

The very first musician to perform on the premiere episode of Austin City Limits in 1974, Willie Nelson was inducted into the inaugural class of the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame by fellow Texan Matthew McConaughey on Saturday, April 26, 2014. “There would be no Austin City Limits without Willie Nelson,” McConaughey told the audience assembled at the University of Texas at Austin, the original home of what is now America’s longest-running televised music program.

Willie Nelson, who turned 81 on April 29/April 30, is an American original, a sublime singer, master tunesmith and outlaw country’s most enduring archetype.

This album contains no booklet.