Willie Nelson on his new album, cannabis cookbook, Kris Kristofferson and what a good song it is

NEW YORK – Young musicians looking for longevity would be wise to follow the wise word of it Willie Nelson: Do what feels right, and if you’re lucky enough to have a statue built in your honor in your town, remember it’s just something you have to “go do every now and then to clean the pigeon (expletive).”

On Friday, Nelson, who is 91, will release his ‘Last Leaf on the Tree’ second studio album this year — also his 76th solo studio album and 153rd album overall, according to Texas Monthly herculean arrangement of his prolific discography. So how much more does he have in him? Nelson laughs into the phone, “I don’t know. I hope there are a few more.” Maybe he’ll reach 200? “Why not!”

“Last Leaf on the Tree” is an album of firsts and celebrities; It’s Nelson’s first album produced entirely by his son Micah, and features a few original songs and covers of Nelson classics like Neil Young, Nina Simone and Tom Waits, as well as some less-than-obvious additions, like reinterpretations of the Flaming Lips’. Do you realize??” and Beck’s ‘Lost Cause’.

“He’s a true artist,” Nelson says of his son. “He picked all the songs.”

When asked how he broke the news to his producer Buddy Cannon that Micah was taking over, Nelson jokes, “We just surprised him.”

Micah Nelson’s artistic, alternative rock sensibility is present on the record, not only in the selection of covers, but also in his performance. For example, for a cover of Young’s “Are You Ready for the Country,” he used sticks and leaves for percussion instead of traditional instrumentation. “I didn’t notice anything different,” Nelson laughs.

His wife, Annie Nelson, who joined Willie for the interview, added, “He says it all the time. It’s great to play with your child. And it’s even better when they’re good.”

After seven decades of songwriting, Nelson says the only way to identify a good one is simply, “You know it when you hear it.” If you hear something and think, “Damn, I wish I had written that,” then it’s a good song.

“There is no better songwriter alive than Kris Kristofferson,” Nelson once said from his Highwaymen bandmate during a 2009 awards show tribute. Kristofferson, 88, died last month at his home in Maui, Hawaii.

“He was a great songwriter. He left a lot of great songs for the rest of us to sing while we’re here,” he reflects. “Kris was a good friend of mine. And you know, we just had a lot of fun together and made a lot of music together – videos, movies. I hated losing him. That was a sad time.”

In some ways, Nelson is the last of the Outlaw Country era, although he has always experimented with genres and styles. The title ‘Last Leaf on the Tree’, taken from a cover of Waits’ ‘Last Leaf’, resonates in a way when looking at his contemporaries. “If you just take the music part of it and go back to, you know, Waylon (Jennings) and Kris and John (ny Cash) and, you know, we all work together, the Highwaymen. And then I’m the only one left. And that’s just not funny.”

The album is also about love and death – topics he knows a thing or two about.

“Well, I’m 91+, so you know, I don’t worry about it. I don’t feel bad. I have no pain anywhere. I have no reason to worry about death. But I don’t know anyone who has had eternal life,” he says. “I take pretty good care of myself. And I feel like I’m in good physical condition. Spiritually? That’s a different story,” he says, laughing.

As for what he hopes his legacy will be, he has an answer for that too: “I had a good time. And I did what I came here to do: make music.”

He will continue to do that and more. He says he already has another album ready, and in a few weeks Willie and Annie Nelson will release “Willie and Annie Nelson’s Cannabis Cookbook,” an easy extension of the couple’s long-held belief that both marijuana and food have medicinal properties . Annie says the book came out of necessity when Willie had pneumonia and couldn’t smoke, so she started making edibles to ease his nightmares.

“He was a great taste tester,” she says.

Without missing a beat, he jumps in: “I’m still!”