[Cover photo credit to Gabriel Barreto]

Academy Award-nominated actress and singer/songwriter Amy Irving has announced her sophomore album Always Will Be, out April 25, 2025 via Queen Of The Castle Records/Missing Piece Records. Featuring 10 renditions from her longtime friend Willie Nelson’s catalog, Always Will Be finds Irving reflecting on key moments from her career in song. In the spirit of collaboration, the album also includes contributions from special guests Willie Nelson, Amy Helm, Louis Cato, Steve Earle, Chris Pierce and Lizzie No.

Along with the announcement, Irving has shared the title track “Always Will Be” (feat. Amy Helm), an ode to her late best friend Judy Nelson, with guest vocals from Helm and a voicemail from Nelson himself.

Irving has also announced album release shows at New York City’s City Winery on May 4 and Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock, NY on May 31.

Irving reflects on the new track:

Judy Nelson was a great love in my life. A blessed friendship, I miss her every day. I sing this song for her, and I know she’s dancing. Amy Helm brought so much to the party! She has such a rich soulful voice – it’s like we added a whole choir!

The origin story of Always Will Be begins with Irving and Nelson’s decades-long friendship, which spans back to when they first met on the set of the 1980 film Honeysuckle Rose. After dueting on a reimagining of his song “I’m Waiting Forever” for her 2023 debut Born In A Trunk, Nelson reached out to his longtime friend with a proposition: Why not record another album, one entirely of his own work? Irving took him up on the offer, collaborating again with bandleader Goolis (Jules David Bartkowski) to pare down a list of 50 options from the songwriter’s oeuvre to these 10 tracks.