First Rose of Spring

AlbumJul 03 / 202011 songs, 41m 26s
Country Singer-Songwriter
Noteable

Since he made his debut in 1962, very rarely has a year gone by without the release of *at least* one Wille Nelson record. On his 70th solo LP, the 87-year-old singer-songwriter continues to reflect without showing any signs of slowing down. Bolstered by two new originals he wrote with longtime friend and producer Buddy Cannon (“Blue Star,” “Love Just Laughed”), *First Rose of Spring* is a powerful comment on the passage of time that would feel like a valediction were it coming from anybody else. The title track tells the story of a husband and wife, of “a love affair from the beginning to the end,” Nelson tells Apple Music. “It’s one of the best songs I’ve heard in a long time.” On “Stealing Home,” he sings from the perspective of a kid overwhelmed by memories as they help pack up their family home. Elsewhere, he galvanizes the Chris Stapleton-penned “Our Song” and adds gravitas to Toby Keith’s Clint Eastwood-inspired ballad “Don’t Let the Old Man In”—and even takes a crack at the orchestral lament “Yesterday When I Was Young,” made famous in the US by Roy Clark in 1969 but originally written and released as “Hier encore” by French icon Charles Aznavour five years earlier. “There\'s a lot of good songs that we still have that will be on the next album or the next one,” Nelson says. “Over the years, we\'ve built quite a backlog. Whether you record them today, tomorrow, last year, it don\'t matter—a good song will always be a good song.”

Willie Nelson's 70th studio album 'First Rose of Spring' proves that, at 87, he has no desire to slow down anytime soon

Review: Willie Nelson's 'First Rose of Spring'

On his 70th studio album, William Nelson reflects on life experience, love and mortality, while British-Jamaican artist Denai Moore explores matters of the heart with a confidence she has seldom shown before on her third record

The very title of First Rose of Spring -- Willie Nelson's 70th or 94th or 143rd, all depending on how you count things -- suggests a bit of a rebirth, an emotion that hasn't been particularly prevalent on the albums Willie recorded and released during his eighties.

7 / 10

Willie Nelson completed a trio of mortality-focused albums with last year's Grammy-winning Ride Me Back Home.

Album: Willie Nelson - First Rose of Spring. Review by Liz Thomson

8 / 10