My Way

There aren’t many surprises on My Way, but that’s unimportant. Nelson’s in terrific voice, he clearly loves the material and delivers each of the 11 tracks with beautifully nuanced authenticity.

His eccentric phrasing brings out new wrinkles in “One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)” and in a “Young at Heart” that suggest he’s coming up with the song’s tricky intervals on the fly. And he and his producers, Buddy Cannon and Matt Rollings, make all kinds of unexpected choices with the arrangements, as in a sprightly “Blue Moon” and “It Was a Very Good Year,” which they give a lilting Cuban vibe.

Unlike Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin, Nelson's limitations aren't a hindrance, and the arrangements aren't excessively polite, which means My Way is an appealingly light record: it's performed with more affection than reverence.

Nelson proved his interpretive chops 40 years ago on Stardust, his first standards set, which launched the gold rush trend--that album is quintuple-platinum at last count and still earning coin. If this one isn’t quite its equal, it’s still a joy.

Although his take lacks Bob's iconoclasm, there's something deeply reassuring about his laid back schmooze on abiding classics such as "Night And Day" and "Fly Me To The Moon." [Nov 2018, p.34]