This week, in the second installment of OBW’s special, Live from Luck! mini-season, hardcore honky-tonker Charley Crockett talks about Willie’s little-known 1961 recording of “Face of a Fighter.” It’s another old Pamper demo, a barroom weeper Willie never did get around to cutting for a proper album, but one that, in Charley’s opinion, is so strong that if just about any other country artist had come up with it, it’d be the best song they ever wrote. From there he’ll get into the Willie songs he listened to as a homeless busker playing subway platforms in New York City, and the night a Willie song almost—not quite, but almost—kept him from going to jail.

This week, the podcast kicks off a special, Live from Luck! mini-season of OBW, four interviews conducted this March at Willie’s central Texas ranch with artists performing later that day at his annual Luck Reunion. Up first is three-time Grammy nominee Allison Russell, who discusses Willie’s landmark 1978 recording of Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust.” It’s one of the most covered titles in the Great American Songbook, and Allison explains why she thinks Willie’s version is definitive... before explaining how his vocals make her think of Billie Holiday and why she played the Stardust album nonstop for her newborn daughter.

This week, Willie’s longtime producer and songwriting partner Buddy Cannon talks about one of the most iconic Willie songs of recent vintage, 2017’s “Something You Get Through.” The song was a cornerstone of Willie’s so-called Mortality Trilogy—a series of albums that found him in Aging Wise Man mode and passing along some hard-learned life lessons. Buddy will describe the poignant moment on Willie’s bus that provided the song’s inspiration and the unique, distinctly 21st Century method they use to write and record together...and then get into his own evolution from hardcore Willie fan in the sixties to invaluable collaborator and friend through the 2000’s.

This week, four-time Oscar nominee Ethan Hawke—who in addition to being an acclaimed actor, writer, and director happens also to be a hardcore Willie nerd—discusses “Too Sick to Pray,” a meditative hymn from Willie’s beautiful, pin-drop quiet 1996 album, Spirit. Ethan says the song and album were touchstones for him when he first became a father in the late 90s, before going on to describe the way Willie’s music connected him with his own dad as a kid, peppering his memories with digressions on Bob Dylan, Henri Matisse, Johnny Cash, Dead Poets Society...and earlobes. Oh and he also explains why he thinks a Willie Nelson biopic has to be set in the here and now.

This week, singer-songwriter Norah Jones—a nine-time Grammy-winner and go-to Willie duet partner—talks about “Permanently Lonely.” It’s one of those songs Willie has recorded repeatedly, but she focuses on his early-sixties demo, sitting at her piano to illustrate the jazzy intricacies of the song’s melody, and marveling at what she calls the beautifully harsh poetry in its lyrics. She’ll also describe the way she leaned on Willie’s music when she left Texas for New York City, the first time she ever sang with him, and the truly wonderful way she came to appear on our podcast. And a hint on that last thought: Like most great Willie stories, it’s all about family.

This week, legendary Muscle Shoals bass player David Hood talks about recording Willie’s classic 1974 album Phases and Stages with his fellow Swampers, focusing on his favorite track on the record, “(How Will I Know) I’m Falling in Love Again.” Phases was, of course, named Willie’s finest album ever by Texas Monthly, and it prompts memories from Hood on the fabled R&B producer who brought the project to Muscle Shoals, Jerry Wexler; the mere two days they took to cut it; and the weird moment when Willie first walked into the studio.

This week, Americana singer-songwriter Nathaniel Rateliff talks about the cut that closes Willie’s 1973 album Shotgun Willie, “A Song for You.” It was arguably Willie’s first iconic cover song, written by one of his closest friends and most important collaborators, Tulsa legend Leon Russell, and it prompts Nathaniel to think aloud about the biker funeral where he first heard it; the crazy, early-70s days when Leon and Willie first hooked up...and the great lesson Nathaniel learned from Willie on creating a space—and a life—that brings friends together to make music.

This week, Willie’s longtime harmonica player, Mickey Raphael, talks about a song Willie cut not long before leaving Nashville for good in 1972, the aptly titled “The Words Don’t Fit the Picture.” Mickey was just a sideman on the Dallas folkie scene when he first heard it, and it’s the song that made him want to play with Willie. He talks about that experience, plus what his fifty-plus years with Willie have been like, from joining the band to shows they played until dawn, mysterious stowaways who spent days on the bus, he and Willie’s onstage telepathy...and how their half-century of friendship changed his life.

This week, one of America’s greatest living composers, Jimmy Webb, the writer of such classics as “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Galveston,” “Macarthur Park,” and “Wichita Lineman,” talks about another of his iconic songs, “Highwayman.” Willie, of course, recorded it with Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson in 1985, and it went on to win that year’s Grammy for best country song, as well as give country’s first supergroup their name. From there, Jimmy touches on reincarnation, the way Glen Campbell got the song to Willie, et al.—with a weird assist from the Knack and “My Sharona”—and a great idea for Willie’s next album.

This week, Vince Gill—a 21-time Grammy-winning singer-songwriter, guitarist, and honkytonk historian—talks about “Healing Hands of Time.” It’s a song Willie’s cut several times, but Vince focuses on the version from 1976’s The Sound in Your Mind, before getting into the power of an irresistible first line in a lyric, the seminal role in country music history played by Willie and his old friend Ray Price, and why writing a song that helps people through a hard time—like “Healing Hands” and Vince’s own “Go Rest High on that Mountain”—matters so much more than having a #1 hit.