A rare peak into the making of a Willie Nelson album.
Today, he (well, his team) released footage of Willie and his son, Micah, in the studio working on his recent studio album, Last Leaf On The Tree.
It’s not something I remember him doing in the recent past, and with commentary from both Micah and Willie, as well as seeing some of the details of how they put the record together, it’s a fascinating watch and real treat for any fan of Willie, or music in general, honestly.
They have cameras in the studio during the recording process, where you can watch Micah and Willie talk about the music and how they want it to sound, and they also show some intimate family moments between the two of them, as well as Willie’s wife and Micah’s mom, Annie, which especially pulls on the heartstrings.
As far as Micah’s approach to the album he explained how he wanted to shape it and what he was going for and how he came to be the producer:
“Long ago, my father discovered a little hidden door behind his mind, like a little secret outlaw fortress where everything’s cool. & he’s always got one foot rooted in that place. Music, just like nature, goes in cycles. It feels like this record has always been there, waiting. To me, this is the ultimate way to connect with him, is to be creative together.
My dad’s longtime manager Mark Rothbaum, he’s like an uncle to me, he called me and asked me to produce my dad’s record. He thought, well, Micah’s a weirdo and he knows how to make records. He understands Willie, and he’ll know how to challenge him. Even though we love a lot of the same stuff, I grew up in a totally different era than he did, so I think it took him a while to recognize himself in it.
It wasn’t just my album that he was singing on. My challenge is to be more like him in the sense of he can say so much with so little. So I really wanted to make sure with this record that underneath all the experimental production, there was a great lyric, a great melody, a great story, and that’s that’s where we connect.”
Willie says that being in the studio with his son and making music was “as good as it gets”:
“Your first thought is, can I see me doing that? But you have to listen. Imagine what you want and then get out of the way. I think we read each other pretty well, you know, and I can tell what he’s thinking and I think he can pretty much tell what I’m thinking most of the time.
Being there with him in the studio, actually hearing and seeing what he’s doing, playing music with him, that’s as good as it gets.”
They tackle a lot about death head-on, and Willie doesn’t shy away from the fact that he’s well-aware of his age, though he’s not afraid of “anything”:
“I never felt I was alone. We’re all gonna die, it’s just a matter of when, and I’m 91, almost 92, and I’m not afraid of dying. I’m not afraid of anything.”
It’s extremely interesting to get this kind of peak into Willie’s deep inner thoughts at this point in his career, and Micah summed up the feeling of this project as “facing the inevitability with a feeling of love and acceptance.”
It’s so rare to get an album like this from an artist as iconic and legendary as Willie, and their willingness to be so open about everything, including the reality of his age, is simply amazing:
“I wanted it to be a cosmic country record, but rooted deep in the earth, and like something emerged naturally, the way a tree grows. all of the emotions that come with feeling immense love for somebody, but recognizing the temporality of everything…
Time is this illusory experience, and the only thing that is happening is just change, floating change, constant flux. And it’s impossible to grab onto something and keep it there. It’s so scary and sad, but you know, without that, we wouldn’t love so hard.
The feeling to me of what this whole project was, was just facing the inevitability with a feeling of love and acceptance, with one foot in the secret outlaw hideaway, where everything’s cool.”
Willie concluded it by saying that his connection to nature has always been an important escape, and he believes he’ll be back one day… but for right now, he’s taking it one day, and “one breathe,” at a time:
“That’s always been a part of my escape, you know, nature. I think I realized pretty early that we were here together, you know. It wasn’t hard to see how we were alike a lot.
There’s no need trying to fight. it. I’ve always felt that we’re all related in some ways, and that death is temporary, that you’ll come back somewhere else. One day at a time, one breathe at a time, really.”
Last Leaf On The Tree includes 13 with a mix of both covers and originals, and it was mostly recorded at the Hen House in Venice, California, as well as a little bit at Willie’s famous Pedernales Studios near his home outside of Austin, Texas.
It’s such a beautiful album, and if you haven’t listened to it yet, you’re missing out… here’s a look a the behind-the-scenes video:
His cover of “Do You Realize??” is the easy standout, in my humble opinion:
