Willie Nelson, Force of Nature

Still chugging away at age 86, Willie Nelson keeps touring and toking and cranking out albums like a 25-year-old. The difference being, most of Willie’s recent albums are really damned good.

His latest, Ride Me Back Home, will hit retailers on June 21. Produced by longtime friend and collaborator Buddy Cannon, who co-wrote three new songs with Willie for the album, it also includes two Guy Clark covers in the tracklist, as well as versions of songs by Mac Davis, Sonny Throckmorton, Billy Joel, Buzz Rabin and Skip Denenberg & Dan Spears, the latter of which played bass with Nelson for more than 40 years before his death in 2011. Rounding out the collection is a newly re-recorded version of a Willie song from 1972, “Stay Away From Lonely Places.” His sons Lukas and Micah join him on the Mac Davis track, “It’s Hard to Be Humble.”

The closest Willie’s getting to Atlanta on his upcoming announced tour dates is a pair of shows in South Carolina – Greenville and Florence – in August.