Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard will release their collaborative effort entitled Django and Jimmie on June 2nd. The project will feature a few new records, duets, and cover songs. The legends recorded Django and Jimmie in less than seven days, but this isn’t the legends “first rodeo.” The country legends‘ other collaborative albums include Pancho & Lefty, Walking the Line (with George Jones), Seashores of Old Mexico, and Last of the Breed (with Ray Price). “We’ve been talking about it for about eighteen months. We’ve been back and forth on the phone about what kind of song we needed to find,” Haggard told Rolling Stone magazine. He added, “We wrote a couple of songs on the phone. When we got into the studio, it was probably three or four days max.”
The album title Django and Jimmie pays homage to Django Reinhardt and Jimmie Rodgers, who influenced Haggard’s songwriting and Nelson’s guitar playing. Each musician also pay their respects to one another with the album title. Haggard covers Nelson’s “Family Bible” on the project, and Nelson recreated Haggard’s “Somewhere Between” on the album as well. Nelson told Rolling Stone that Haggard is one of the greatest songwriters in music.
Nelson and Haggard’s Pancho & Lefty was released in 1983, and it peaked at Number 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. Two singles were dropped from the project including “Reasons to Quit” and “Pancho and Lefty.” Both songs charted on the country charts; “Reasons to Quit” reached the Number 6 position, and “Pancho and Lefty” peaked at Number 1. Besides Nelson and Haggard, Townes Van Zandt, Smiley Burnette, Leona Williams, and Stuart Hamblen all penned songs on the chart-topping album.
The duo’s last project entitled Last of the Breed was dropped in 2007. The project entered the Billboard 200 Albums chart at Number 64, and it peaked at Number 7 on the Top Country Albums chart. Rolling Stone ranked it Number 33 on its list of Top 50 Albums of 2007. Some of the songs featured on Last of the Breed (2-disc set) include “Back to Earth,” “Mom and Dad’s Waltz,” “Lost Highway,” “I Love You a Thousand Times,” and “Why Me.”
FDRMX Eyes: From the United Kingdom comes singer-songwriter James Paterson. Paterson has released a music video for his song, “Read Between the Lines.”
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