RAMBLIN ROUND: Willie Nelson and Frank Sinatra: 'That's Life'

Feb. 26—It's a new year, time for a new Willie Nelson album.

For the second time in roughly two and a-half years, Willie's recorded a Frank Sinatra tribute album. And in case anyone's missing the point, the cover of Willie's new album, "That's Life," is an evocative nod to Sinatra's vaunted 1955 album, "In the Wee Small Hours."

Both feature the respective singers standing alone on a lonely, deserted street at night, awash in street lights with a hazy blue hue.

The painting of Willie on "That's Life" is an obvious tip of the Stetson to Sinatra's "Wee Small Hours" cover, painted by Alex Steinweiss. Artist Paul Mann did the new portrait of Willie and his battered Martin guitar, affectionately dubbed Trigger.

While Sinatra's "In the Wee Small Hours" is filled with songs of loneliness and desperation, Willie's newest is more of a swinging affair.

Willie's 2018 Sinatra tribute, "My Way, won the Grammy awarded in 2019 for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, winning over competitors including the formidable team of Tony Bennett and Diana Krall for their album "Love Is Here to Stay" and Barbra Streisand for "The Music... The Mem'ries... The Magic!"

For a little extra touch that year, the Library of Congress awarded Willie the well-deserved Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.

That leaves "That's Life" with some might big boots to fill.

It gets off to a swinging start with George and Ira Gershwin's "Nice Work If You Can Get It," filled with rollicking piano rolls from co-producer Matt Rollings, with tasty acoustic bass and steel guitar riffs providing an extra bounce.

Next comes "Just in Time," as the album swings along on a number I associate with Tony Bennett as much as Sinatra.

Then the album takes a sharp turn with"Cottage for Sale," a song about "Our little dream castle, where the dreams are gone." The going doesn't get any easier as Willie sings: "In every single window, I see your face, but when I reach the window, there's only empty space." Yikes!

If anything can lift the mood it has to be Cole Porter's "I've Got You Under My Skin." Opening with a bossa nova beat instead of going for the all-out brass assault of Sinatra's and arranger Nelson Riddle's 1950s version, Willie utilizes a jazz combo with a Brazilian touch. It's fun to hear Willie singing "Don't you know little fool, there's no way you can win. Use your mentality. Wake up to reality," before he goes on to confess to the object of his desire that she is indeed, under his skin.

Probably the album's funnest track is hearing the 87-year-old Willie on the swing-fest "You Make Me Feel So Young." He's absolutely believable as he sings "You and I are just like a couple of tots, running across the meadow, picking up lots of Forget-Me-Nots."

With Willie off to a fine start on "I Won't Dance," I felt startled when a female voice joined him in song. He and Diana Krall sound as if they're having a good time and there's an amusing animated video of their duet on YouTube.

I looked forward to seeing what Willie did with the title song from That's Life" — a number four hit for Sinatra in 1966 when he had to battle The Beatles and other rockers to chart on Billboard's Hot 100.

I've heard other versions of the song and they always seemed to lack something — even the version by the great Van Morrison. I thought it might have been the absence of the background singers on Sinatra's Jimmy Bowen-produced original, but Willie fares just fine without them. Then, I had an epiphany. Call it humor, buoyant optimism or something else, both Willie and Sinatra capture the song's essence when others have missed it.

When Willie sings "I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king," on the song's bridge, you absolutely believe it.

"Luck Be a Lady" proves to be another dependable warhorse, followed by "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning."

Sinatra's version is one of heart-wrenching loss, while Willie's conveys a whimsical resignation: "In the wee, small hours of the morning, when the whole wide world is fast asleep, you lie awake and think about the girl and never, ever think of counting sheep."

It features an exquisite harmonica solo from Mickey Raphael, which perfectly fits the song's late-night ambience — a favorite performance from the album.

"Learning the Blues" is another swinger, not nearly as forlorn as the title implies, followed by the magnificent album-closer," Lonesome Road."

It's a quasi gospel song, about keeping your eyes on the lonesome road ahead while waiting for Gabriel to blow his horn. Fans of "The Andy Griffith Show" might recognize it from the episode "Rafe Hollister Sings," while Bob Dylan obviously borrowed heavily from it for his 2001 song "Sugar Baby."

"Lonesome Road" closes Willie's new album because there's nowhere to go from there — unless you want to return to track one and listen to the whole thing again.

Although Willie's new album is named "That's Life," it could have easily shared the name of another Sinatra Album, "Songs for Swinging Lovers." While it contains a few ballads, most of the numbers are uptempo and yes indeed, they do swing.

For that, credit goes to Willie and the production team of Rollings and Willie's songwriting partner, Buddy Cannon. While Rollings and Cannon do a masterful job of keeping the swing in the thing, if there's one complaint about the album, it's for another production touch.

While Rollings is a fine jazz pianist, I could have done with a few less of his piano solos and more gut-string guitar from Willie.

Electric jazz guitarist Dean Parks and steel guitarist Paul Franklin take a number of nimble solos, but I only detected Trigger's distinctive sound a few times.

At times I felt myself wondering "O Trigger, where art thou?"

I can hear great jazz players on any number of albums. When I listen to a Willie album, I want to hear Willie's voice, Trigger, and Mickey Raphael's harp. While "That's Life" is sometimes lacking in the Trigger and Mickey departments, it does have Willie's voice upfront, where it belongs.

Sinatra and Willie worked together on a few occasions and Sinatra has been quoted as saying of Willie, "The cat's a blues singer. He can sing my stuff, but I don't know if I can sing his."

As far as I know, Sinatra never recorded any of Willie's songs. I would have loved to hear him cut loose on "Night Life" or "Funny How Time Slips Away," to mention just a few.

"That's Life" provides yet more evidence that Willie can convincingly sing Sinatra's songs — albeit in Willie's unique style, not Sinatra's. We'll likely never know how Sinatra would have fared with Willie's stuff.

Oh well, as they both put it so convincingly, "That's Life."

Contact James Beaty at jbeaty@mcalesternews.com.