Willie Nelson, 93, Rerecords 'Pretty Paper' With Brandon Coleman

Willie Nelson, aged 93, has released a new version of his Christmas standard "Pretty Paper" featuring Brandon Coleman, lead singer of The Red Clay Strays. The recording is out now through Sony's Legacy Recordings.

Nelson wrote the song more than six decades ago. It was inspired by a disabled street vendor selling wrapping paper and pencils in Fort Worth, Texas, and it looks past the holiday shopping rush to someone the rest of the world might walk past. Roy Orbison famously recorded it. Nelson later made it a signature piece of his own Christmas catalogue.

Who is Brandon Coleman?

Coleman fronts The Red Clay Strays, a band that blends country, Southern rock, soul and gospel for a new generation of listeners. The pairing brings two generations of country music together on one of the season's most affecting songs.

The connection between the two artists has been building for some time:

• The Red Clay Strays performed at Nelson's Luck Reunion on his Texas ranch.
• The band later joined the lineup of his Outlaw Music Festival, sharing stages with an artist whose independent spirit helped redefine country music.

The new recording is the first product of that friendship listeners can bring home for Christmas.

What else is on Nelson's calendar?

Nelson's book, "The Last Leaf: Reflections on Late-Life Creativity—and My Longest Love Affair," arrives November 10. It offers a personal account of his artistic productivity and his enduring relationship with his wife, Annie.

The numbers behind that productivity are striking. Over the past 12 years, Nelson has recorded 21 studio albums, written more than 50 songs, published seven books and headlined more than 800 concerts. That averages out to nearly two albums and roughly 70 concerts per year, sustained into his mid-90s.

In "The Last Leaf," Nelson examines how he continues finding inspiration, revisiting pivotal experiences while reflecting on the partnership that has shaped his later years. His philosophy is compact: "Looking to the future as I look to the past," he writes, "I stay in the present."

What does the rerecording mean?

That attitude suits the new "Pretty Paper." Nelson can return to a song from his earliest songwriting years, invite a younger artist into the story and find another reason to keep singing it.

The release also functions as a document of Southern roots music's generational handoff. A songwriter who helped redefine country music now shares a microphone with a singer carrying that tradition forward — a passing of the repertoire performed rather than declared.

The recording stands apart from seasonal spectacle by design. Christmas offers enormous choirs and songs built for shopping-mall singalongs; Nelson offers a guitar, a decades-old story and Coleman beside him. With the book arriving November 10 and the single out now, Nelson closes the year with two statements of the same idea — that late-life creativity can mean revisiting what you built and finding someone new to build it with.