Willie Nelson
Last Night Standing
(Legacy Recordings)

Willie Nelson’s 67^th album, Last Man Standing, (yeah 67^th, you read right) opens with a great wry country funk title track addressing the 85-year-old country legend’s place smack dab in the center of the deaths of many of his famous friends. Nelson may indeed be the last man standing, but he’s also rockin’ across these 11 new tunes.

“Don’t Tell Noah,” grooves just as much as the opening tune (man, Mickey Raphael, Willie’s longtime harmonica player, really wails!) and “Bad Breath,” has the winning lines, “Halitosis is a word I never could spell. But bad breath is better than no breath at all.”

Things slow down on “Something You Get Through” with a nice swelling organ and pedal steel running around Nelson’s talk/vocal warble as well as on the second-to-last tune, “I’ll Try To Do Better Next Time,” where Nelson confesses and promises to do just that.

“Ready to Roar,” is fiddle country swing, and “Heaven Is Closed,” is a big electric guitar/pedal steel country sway, with lyrics you’d expect, but managed masterfully.

There’s plenty of women doing a man wrong here, like “She Made My Day”, to which Nelson quickly ads “…and she ruined my life.” “I Ain’t Got Nothing,” tells of a woman who left and took all of his money; “I gave you a ring and you gave me the finger” he sings.

The final tune, “Very Far to Crawl,” is a low down, scary, cowboy, electric guitar bender about being down and out after a break up.

Here’s to hoping Willie Nelson keeps making albums, even if he does end up being the Last Man Standing.