At a time when most 65-year-olds are queuing up to cash their pension cheques Willie Nelson has recorded one of the most stirring country CDs of the decade.

Produced by the legendary Canadian studio wizard Daniel Lanois, of U2 and Peter Gabriel fame, Teatro is a breathtaking slice of American roots music that tap dances stylistically from Tejano folk to Texas Swing to the gypsy jazz influence of Django Reinhardt.

Choosing Lanois to guide the vision of Teatro stemmed from Nelson's desire to capitalize on the producer's ability to create spacious vistas in a recording studio.

"I liked his use of rhythm and being a musician himself I felt like Daniel has an incredible ear and the ability to put together sounds that you never knew you wanted to hear," he says with a laugh from his home near Austin, Tex.

"What you have to understand about relationships in a studio is that they're so very important. Because we're both players we can communicate in a fashion that's not an option with some others because you can't run ideas and conceptions through people that can't play. We talk the same language.

Nelson says he likes to continually make his music evolutionary.

"There's certainly a similarity and feel to my last recording Spirit and that carried through. It's more of a rhythmic thing and that's Daniel's contribution. We chose all the songs from a list of about 200 before we ever went into the studio and then Daniel narrowed it down to some of my older stuff and some new ones. Actually, I probably would have never recorded songs like I Never Cared For You and My Own Peculiar Way just because I figured if I remembered them from the '60s, everyone else would. But everyone agreed that within the context of this session the older material took on a new feeling.

"After we'd finished I found it very gratifying and felt that it just verified something that I'd always believed, and that was that a good song is a good song and all you have to do is dress it up one way or another and they'll always be accepted."

Nelson's always seemed to be on the fringe of country music and that's fine with him. It allows the man to make music his own way and then just wait for the industry to wake up.

When we talk about "new" country, he just laughs.

"It's all phases and stages man. We stand around with our collective mouths open for a few years and say: 'How could this happen?' And then before you know it supply and demand kicks in and the people demand the good stuff again."

Nelson demands respect because his musical history is not only voluminous but oozing with character -- his career highlights speak volumes.

He wrote Patsy Cline's classic track Crazy.

His '70s musical marriage with Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson as The Outlaws took country music in a direction that shook Nashville to its very foundations.

And in the same breath he's recorded torchy ballads with the likes of Latin heartthrob Julio Iglesias. He's been a movie star, battled the IRS and raised thousands for American farmers through Farm Aid concerts.

After 200 albums and four decades in the business Nelson figures his legacy is a simple one.

"I've just always tried to be honest with the music and my own feelings towards it.

"Being that music has a way of jumping all the boundaries and cutting to the bone and it doesn't matter who you are, where you are or what language you speak I've always felt like the power to move people was the music and I've tried to focus on that. Music is a prime vehicle of communication and I feel I have a responsibility to use my gift in whatever way I can to help people out.

"If you're a doctor at a car wreck you're going to do what you can and if you're a musician you try to help the condition."