Willie Nelson's new album is a plea for peace in unpeaceful times. Willie Nelson is returning to his gospel roots with his re-release of Peace in the Valley. The original masters containing Peace in the Valley were confiscated by the IRS in 1991. The original album was released in 1994, but did not receive wide spread distribution.

"I don't ever remember not playing and singing gospel music," Nelson said in a statement. "My grandparents were music teachers and they were gospel singers. The first music that I heard was gospel music, so it's not that unusual that I would be so much into it."

Willie Nelson, Jr. (Billy), who died in December 1991, joins his father for two songs on "Peace in the Valley." In recordings made primarily in the late 80's, Billy sings lead on My Body's Just a Suitcase for My Soul.

"I was doing an album with Billy, my son, in Nashville," Willie explained in the statement. "We didn't know how it was going to turn out and really what we were going to do with it when we got through, but the guys sounded so great

"I hadn't heard a group of singers that close to traditional gospel harmony in so many years that I was very impressed and still am very impressed with those guys," Willie said. "It just turned out so well."

Nelson is a music legend who has recorded more than 100 records. The original Peace in the Valley studio tapes were salvaged by a process of baking them in a special oven and then transferring all tracks to a high quality digital format.  Additional vocals and instrumentations were also added.