The 92-year-old’s Oh What a Beautiful World will face off with his son’s American Romance in the first year of the new country category
Let’s get ready to rumble! In an exceedingly rare father-son faceoff, the 2026 Grammy Awards will feature 92-year-old Willie Nelson in one corner and his 36-year-old son Lukas in the other as the two face off in the first-ever race for Best Traditional Country Album.
A pillar of country music, the elder Wilson is a 12-time Grammy winner and 57-time nominee who is nominated for Oh What a Beautiful World, his 2025 collection of Rodney Crowell songs. His progeny is up for American Romance, the first album released under his own name after years of LPs with his band Promise of the Real. Lukas Nelson only scored his first Grammy nomination and won five years ago for his work on the A Star Is Born soundtrack.
Boxing puns and allusions aside, competition between a father and son in the same Grammy category is hard to come by, but not without precedent. In 1998, one of Willie’s most famous duet partners, “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before” crooner Julio Iglesias, squared off with his son Enrique Iglesias in the Best Latin Pop Album contest. Alas, neither Iglesias was victorious: The trophy went to Luis Miguel for his album Romances.
That same fate could befall the Nelsons, too, as the Best Traditional Country Album field is stocked with strong contenders. The other nominees include Charley Crockett’s Dollar a Day, Margo Price’s Hard Headed Woman, and Zach Top’s Ain’t in It for My Health. All three are superb records and, along with the Nelsons’ albums, underscore the apparent success in the Academy’s decision to split the country album category into “traditional” and “contemporary” designations. (Artists like Kelsea Ballerini and Jelly Roll are nominated in the latter.)
Willie’s Best Traditional Country Album nomination is his second at the 68th Grammys. He’s also up for 2024’s Last Leaf on the Tree, produced by his other son, Micah.
The 2026 Grammy Awards air Sunday, Feb. 1, at 8 p.m. ET on CBS, live from Los Angeles.
