Willie Nelson will release his 70th studio album, “First Rose of Spring,” on April 24, just five days ahead of his 87th birthday.

It’s an 11-track collection that includes two songs he wrote with the album’s producer, Buddy Cannon, and others written by peers and admirers including Chris Stapleton, Randy Houser, Billy Joe Shaver and Toby Keith.

“First Rose of Spring” also features his renditions of Johnny Paycheck’s 1977 country hit “I’m the Only Hell My Mama Ever Raised” and the cabaret-pop classic “Yesterday When I Was Young (Hier Encore),” originally popularized in 1964 by French singer Charles Aznavour before Roy Clark’s English-language version became the country-singer guitarist’s biggest hit in 1969.

The title track is the first release from the album, and the lyric video can be seen above. The songs Nelson wrote with Cannon are titled “Blue Star” and “Love Just Laughed.”


The new album also is the 14th from Nelson since he signed with Sony Music’s Legacy Recordings division in 2012. The previous two, “Ride Me Back Home” in 2019 and “My Way” a year earlier, both earned Nelson additional Grammy Awards, for country solo performance and traditional pop vocal album, respectively.