Willie Nelson photo by David McClister, courtesy of Lost Highway.

When fans talk about classic-country sounds in 2010, they more often than not are thinking about music by the likes of Merle Haggard, George Jones, Patsy Cline and Willie Nelson.

Who did those artists consider classic? Well, you get a bit of an answer to that question on Willie’s latest album, Country Music. Released Tuesday, it includes covers of songs first made famous by the likes of Porter Wagoner, Al Dexter, the Louvin Brothers and Merle Travis.

It threads together numerous country subgenres, including rockabilly, honky-tonk, western swing and bluegrass with Willie’s familiar, reedy vocal above it all. Country Music is a walk down memory lane for the singer, but it also introduces some of his younger fans to music that came before them. In that way, it’s not a whole lot different in concept than his groundbreaking Stardust album, which pulled together numerous traditional-pop songs and set records for its longevity on the national charts.

“This is a group of songs that when they first came out, it didn’t take them very long to become standards,” Willie told Billboard of the Country Music track list. “Just like ‘Stardust,’ ‘Moonlight In Vermont,’ ‘All Of Me’ and ‘Georgia [On My Mind]‘ are considered standards, so are ‘Dark As A Dungeon,’ ‘Freight Train Boogie,’ ‘Pistol Packin’ Mama’ and ‘Satisfied Mind.’ These are all standard songs from another field of music, but they are still the same category. They are just as good in their own way.”

To produce the project, Willie enlisted T Bone Burnett, who knows a thing or two about recasting old songs. He did that as a producer with some of the material in the Robert Plant & Alison Krauss collaboration Raising Sand. T Bone likewise did that one form or another in overseeing the music for the movies Crazy Heart, Walk The Line and O Brother, Where Art Thou?.

“He brought most of the songs to the session, called all the musicians together,” Willie says. “I trusted him and I knew he’d get the right guys and the right songs, and sure enough, I think he did.”

A cover of Jimmy C. Newman’s 1954 hit “Cry, Cry Darling” is being added as a bonus track for customers who download the album through iTunes. Meanwhile, Willie’s introducing songs from the project every hour through Saturday on his Sirius XM Channel, Willie’s Place.

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