Country music legend Willie Nelson released Last Man Standing on April 27th. That last sentence may seem unremarkable—he has released 66 previous albums, after all—yet it gets a little more exciting when you realize Last Man Standing isn’t just the name of Willie’s latest record. It’s also the name of his latest marijuana strain.
Nelson, who celebrated his 85th birthday on April 29th, has been in the music business for 62 years. While he’s famously been an advocate of the marijuana plant since the 1960s, his time in the marijuana business—at least officially—began much more recently in 2015. That’s when Nelson co-founded Willie’s Reserve, a brand that sells paraphernalia, edibles, and old-fashioned buds on the United States’ growing legal marijuana market.
Considering Nelson’s music and marijuana ventures, it’s no surprise that some co-branding is in order. If anything, the only surprise is that it’s taken this long to happen. Last Man Standing is the fourth album that the prolific singer, songwriter, and musician has released since 2015, but it’s the first to lend its name to a Willie’s Reserve product.
“It comes from this huge plant with beautiful buds,” Shane Osburn, who bred and cultivated the strain at Sol Grow Mendocino with his wife Amelia, told Taste of Country. “It’s so expressive of its characteristics. When you walk past the plant it smells like an orange tree.”
“Willie is a soldier for the cannabis community,” adds Amelia. “We have total respect for how he’s told the world about what we do, through his music and through who he is… We’ve come pretty damn far from the point where they’d put you in prison for life for a seed to where we are now. It’s a lot of progress.”
In addition to both versions of Last Man Standing, Nelson has also released a video for the album’s first single, “Ready to Roar”. The clip finds the icon and members of his band diving into some old school Western swing in the studio, and you can check out it below. Checking out the new Last Man Standing strain, on the other hand, can only be done Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and California.
Willie Nelson – “Ready to Roar”