New Willie Nelson Project ‘Ride Me Back Home’ Coming June 21

Legacy Recordings is set to release Willie Nelson‘s upcoming album Ride Me Back Home on June 21.

The album’s title track, co-written by Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame member Sonny Throckmorton along with his daughter Debby, as well as Lucinda Hinton and Joe Manual, examines horses and their spirituality.

“Sonny lives right by Willie’s Luck studio,” longtime friend/producer/musical compadre Buddy Cannon pointed out. “He said he wrote that song because he was over there and saw Willie’s horses. I don’t even know if Willie knows that or not.” The horses to which Cannon refers are a group of more than 60 that Willie has adopted over the years, rescuing them from the slaughterhouse and giving them a home on his “Luck” ranch. This project marks the 13th album Cannon has produced for Nelson in little more than a decade. The album also debuts three new tracks co-written by Nelson and Cannon, including “Come On Time,” “One More Song to Write,” and “Seven Year Itch.

Elsewhere on the project, Nelson covers Billy Joel’s “Just The Way You Are,” Mac Davis’ “It’s Hard To Be Humble” (with Lukas Nelson and Micah Nelson), and Guy Clarks “Immigrant Eyes” and “My Favorite Picture of You.”

He also revisits “Stay Away From Lonely Places,” a song Nelson first penned and recorded as part of his 1972 album The Words Don’t Fit the Picture.
“I’m the biggest Willie Nelson fan there is, and I thought I knew every song that he ever did. But I had never heard that song. It sounded totally new to me,” said Cannon, who encouraged Nelson to include the song on the new album. “He’s a born troubadour. It’s the greatness: That early genius that was him and his songs is still there.”

Willie Nelson - Ride Me Back Home