That's Life (Willie Nelson album)

That's Life
That's Life
Studio album by Willie Nelson
Released	February 26, 2021
Studio	Capitol Studios (Los Angeles, California); Pedernales Recording (Spicewood, Texas);
Genre	Traditional pop; jazz;
Length	34:38
Label	Legacy
Producer	Buddy Cannon, Matt Rollings
Willie Nelson chronology
Singles from That's Life
	"A Cottage for Sale"; Released: December 11, 2020;

That's Life is the 71st solo studio album by Willie Nelson. It was released on February 26, 2021, by Legacy Recordings.^[1] A tribute to Frank Sinatra, it represents the second volume of Nelson's Sinatra collection, following 2018's My Way.^[2]

Produced by Buddy Cannon and Matt Rollings, it was mainly recorded on Capitol Studios, the original studio used for several of Sinatra's recordings. Additional tracks were recorded at Nelson's Pedernales studio. The release was mixed by engineer Al Schmitt, featuring string and brass arrangements. The cover of the album features a painting of Nelson evoking the cover of Sinatra's In the Wee Small Hours.^[1]

That's Life was nominated for the 2022 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.^[3]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	80/100^[4]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	^[5]
American Songwriter	^[6]

That's Life received positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received a score of 80 out of 100 based on five reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[4]

Lee Zimmerman of American Songwriter said that Nelson "captures the feel and finesse of the original renditions and succeeds in making them his own."^[6] In The Daily Telegraph Neil McCormick praised the "different pathos" Nelson brought to the material and characterised the album as "another loving and elegant tribute to an old friend and American legend."^[7]

Track listing

*That's Life* track listing
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"Nice Work If You Can Get It"	George Gershwin Ira Gershwin	2:35
2.	"Just in Time"	Jule Styne Betty Comden Adolph Green	2:25
3.	"A Cottage for Sale"	Willard Robison Larry Conley	2:54
4.	"I've Got You Under My Skin"	Cole Porter	3:34
5.	"You Make Me Feel So Young"	Josef Myrow Mack Gordon	2:52
6.	"I Won't Dance" (featuring Diana Krall)	Jerome Kern Dorothy Fields Jimmy McHugh Oscar Hammerstein II Otto Harbach	3:25
7.	"That's Life"	Dean Kay Kelly Gordon	3:39
8.	"Luck Be a Lady"	Frank Loesser	3:04
9.	"In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning"	David Mann Bob Hilliard	2:58
10.	"Learnin' the Blues"	Dolores Silvers	3:31
11.	"Lonesome Road"	Nathaniel Shilkret Gene Austin	3:41
Total length:			34:38