Willie Nelson Announces New Album ‘That’s Life’ & Shares Single

Willie Nelson announced a new Frank Sinatra tribute album, That’s Life, arriving on February 26, 2021 via Legacy Recordings. Nelson also shared the single, “Cottage For Sale.”

That’s Life follows Willie’s first homage album to Sinatra, the 2018 Grammy-winning My Way. Towering figures in their respective genres, Willie and Frank were friends and the album announcement comes just a day before what would have been Sinatra’s 105th birthday on December 12.

“I learned a lot about phrasing listening to Frank,” Willie said in a 2018 interview for AARP Magazine. “He didn’t worry about behind the beat or in front of the beat, or whatever — he could sing it either way, and that’s the feel you have to have.”

Nelson with the help of his faithful guitar Trigger, recorded the album at the historic Capitol Studios in Hollywood — where Sinatra was the first artist to record, putting together a string of albums from 1956 to 1965 — with the aid of producers Buddy Cannon and Matt Rollings. Multiple Grammy-winning engineer Al Schmitt handled the mixing while Kristin Wilkinson and Chris McDonald delivered the orchestral arrangements. That’s Life sees contributions from a number of musicians including longtime Nelson collaborator Mickey Raphael on harmonica, Dave Matthews Band saxophonist Jeff Coffin and Grammy-winning vocalist Diana Krall on “I Won’t Dance.”

The record also features Sinatra popularized numbers like “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” “You Make Me Feel So Young,” “Luck Be A Lady” and “In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning.” The latter is the title track to a 1955 Sinatra album, the cover for which was the inspiration for the cover of Willie’s That’s Life.

Check out the cover art along with lead single “Cottage For Sale” below:

That’s Life Tracklist (songwriters; Frank Sinatra version, date):

1. Nice Work If You Can Get It (Ira Gershwin & George Gershwin; Sinatra-Basie: An Historic Musical First, 1962)
2. Just In Time (Adolph Green, Jule Styne & Betty Comden; Come Dance With Me!, 1959)
3. A Cottage For Sale (Larry Conley & Willard Robison; No One Cares, 1959)
4. I’ve Got You Under My Skin (Cole Porter; Songs For Swingin’ Lovers!, 1956)
5. You Make Me Feel So Young (Josef Myrow & Mack Gordon; Songs For Swingin’ Lovers!, 1956)
6. I Won’t Dance – featuring Diana Krall (Jerome Kerr, Oscar Hammerstein II, Otto Harbach, Jimmy McHugh & Dorothy Fields; A Swingin’ Affair!, 1957)
7. That’s Life (Dean Kay & Kelly Gordon, That’s Life, 1966)
8. Luck Be A Lady (Frank Loesser; My Kind Of Broadway, 1965)
9. In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning (David Mann & Bob Hilliard; In The Wee Small Hours, 1955)
10. Learnin’ The Blues (Dolores Vicki Silvers; Session with Sinatra EP, single, 1955)
11. Lonesome Road (Nathaniel Shilkret & Gene Austin; A Swingin’ Affair!, 1957)