Willie Nelson began as a songwriter and grew into a durable country troubadour of the late 20th century. Nelson wrote "Crazy" (the signature tune of Patsy Cline), "Funny How Time Slips Away" and "Rainy Day Blues" among many other 1960s hits. His breakthrough 1975 album Red-Headed Stranger included the hit "Blue Eyes Crying In the Rain" and cemented his reputation as a honky-tonk outlaw with a touch of sentimental hippie in him. (Blue jeans, bandannas, long red braids and the Texas flag all became part of his motif.) His other hits included "On the Road Again" and "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys." Nelson also acted, appearing in movies like Honeysuckle Rose (1980), Thief (1981) and Barbarossa (1982). In the 1980s Nelson performed with The Highwaymen, a supergroup including Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson. He also became an activist, starting the annual "Farm Aid" megaconcerts in 1985. In 1993 Nelson was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. His many albums include Hello Walls (1966, when he was clean-cut); Good Times (1968); Red Headed Stranger (1975); One for the Road (1979); Always on My Mind (1982); Across the Borderline (1993); Augusta (1995, with Don Cherry); and Songbird (2006).
Ever the rebel, Nelson had a drawn-out battle with the IRS in the late 1980s that left him owing millions of dollars in back taxes; he paid off the debt thanks partly to the proceeds of a double album titled The IRS Tapes... In September of 2006 Nelson was cited for drug possession after Louisiana state police found marijuana and hallucinogenic mushrooms on his tour bus.
With well over 200 albums to his credit since the beginning of his country music career in the late 1950s, Willie Nelson (born 1933) has had a long run as one of the stars of the genre. As a songwriter, he penned some of the most familiar modern standards of country and pop music, including "Crazy," recorded by Patsy Cline, "Night Life," and the song that has come to represent his career: "On the Road Again." Beyond his accomplishments in country music, Nelson has become something of an icon of American popular culture, his distinctive dual hair braids and bandanna handkerchief instantly recognizable all over the United States and through much of the world.
Nelson was born in Abbott, Texas, a small farming community located between Waco and the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. His parents were migrant farmers who had come west from Arkansas. He picked cotton as a child, and later told Texas Monthly that "my desire to escape manual labor started back there in the cotton fields." After he was left with his paternal grandparents, who were voice and piano teachers, he also began spending time on music. Nelson's sister Bobbie would become an accomplished classical pianist, but his own talents ran immediately toward songwriting. When he was five years old he started writing poetry, and when he was given a guitar a year later he started to fill a songbook to which he had given the title Songs of Willie Nelson.
Various types of music shaped the young songwriter and showed up in his mature style. He learned from not only the country music and western swing dance bands that flourished all over Texas, but also the pop and jazz vocals he heard on the radio and a even less-common influence, the polka music that filled the dance halls in heavily Czech-American central Texas. In fact, it was as a polka musician that Nelson, at age ten, made his professional debut, in Abbott's John Raycheck Band. Nelson's grandparents - strict Methodists whose musical influences surfaced in Nelson's famous gospel song "Family Bible" - tried to steer the boy away from the barrooms, but to no avail. "I was doomed to go to hell by the time I was seven," Nelson told Entertainment Weekly, "because I had been told that if you smoke cigarettes and drink beer you're going to hell. And by seven, I was gone."
As a teenager Nelson played regularly in a band led by his sister's husband, Bud Fletcher. After graduating from high school he actually thought about embarking on a conventional career. He joined the United States Air Force but was discharged after nine months because of the back problems that would plague him his entire life. He then enrolled at Baylor University in Waco, but did not last long there. Back in Abbott in 1952, he married the first of his four wives, Martha Matthews, a woman said by Nelson to be of full-blooded Cherokee descent. He also resumed his musical life.
Sold Encyclopedias
For much of the 1950s, Nelson was torn between family responsibilities and creative inspiration. He tried to split the difference by working as a disc jockey, at first at stations in San Antonio and Fort Worth, Texas, and later in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where he became one of several country stars - another was Loretta Lynn - who launched their recording careers by promoting self-released singles there. Nelson's debut was called "No Place for Me." After Martha found herself pregnant with the third of Nelson's eventual seven children, the family returned to Texas where Nelson worked selling encyclopedias and then vacuum cleaners.
Soon he was back writing songs and performing with a band that played gigs in the rough honky-tonks throughout the Houston area. What steered Nelson toward a musical career for good was the sale of "Family Bible," one of his earliest compositions, to a Nashville publisher for $50. The song became a hit for vocalist Claude Gray in 1960, and that same year Nelson headed for Nashville himself. There he met veteran songwriter Hank Cochran, who realized the value of the songs flowing from Nelson's pen and steered him toward the Pamper Music publishing house. Nelson's first marriage dissolved after his wife tied him up with a children's jump rope during one dispute, but he moved in with singer Shirley Collie and married her in 1963.
The late 1950s and early 1960s were an especially rich time creatively for Nelson, who wrote songs rapidly, telling a Texas Monthly interviewer that "the air is full of melodies." He penned three of country music's greatest standards, "Crazy," "Ain't It Funny How Time Slips Away," and "Night Life," within a single week. Unschooled in the ways of the music business, he realized little profit from these compositions; for "Night Life," which was recorded by artists ranging from Frank Sinatra to bluesman B.B. King, he received a flat fee of $150. However, he was properly paid for "Hello Walls," opening his mail one day to find a $40,000 royalty check after the song became a smash for vocalist Faron Young. Apart from songwriting, he also earned a regular paycheck as a member of singer Ray Price's Cherokee Cowboys band.
Recounted Rushing into Burning House
Nelson once again made a stab at settling down, this time as a pig farmer. However, he soon returned to the road, "swallowing enough pills," he was quoted as saying in Texas Monthly, "to choke Johnny Cash." By 1969 Nelson's second marriage had dissolved after his wife opened a hospital bill containing charges for the birth of Nelson's child by another woman. Late that year his house in Nashville burned down; Nelson claimed to have rushed into the burning building to rescue a guitar and a stash of marijuana. He later gave up alcohol and other drugs, but became an advocate for marijuana usage.
During the early 1970s Nelson moved back to Texas and started his career afresh. In and around the college town of Austin, he noticed an unusual mingling between youthful rock audiences and traditional country fans, and he reacted by writing new songs carefully crafted to appeal to both groups. In 1972 he founded an annual music festival in Dripping Springs, Texas, playing host to similarly minded Nashville nonconformists such as Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson and sowing the seeds of country music's socalled Outlaw movement. Nelson was signed to the Atlantic label, formerly known mostly for rhythm and blues, and he released the structurally innovative Shotgun Willie album to critical praise.
In 1975 Nelson was signed to the country division of the giant Columbia label. Newly confident about his creative vision, he insisted on complete creative control over his recordings. When he approached the label with the finished masters of his Red Headed Stranger album, Columbia personnel were dismayed by its stripped-down sound and unusual "concept" structure; the album's songs, for the first time in country-music history, collectively told a story. Powerful executive Billy Sherrill even left the room as the music was playing. Despite Columbia's concerns, Nelson was vindicated when Red Headed Stranger hit the number-one spot on the country charts and had healthy sales among pop and rock audiences as well. In the late 1970s Nelson dominated the country charts, both as a solo artist and as part of a duet with Waylon Jennings. The two spearheaded the well-marketed Outlaw brand of country music that contributed to the country genre's sales boom during those years.
Nelson confounded label expectations again in 1978 with another shift in direction: he recorded an album of pop standards titled Stardust. For Nelson it was not an extreme creative stretch; he had admired jazz-influenced pop singers such as Frank Sinatra since he was young. His quiet, conversational baritone proved an ideal match for songs like Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies," and the album became a runaway success, remaining in print continuously for the next quarter century. Meditative, jazzy phrasing also provided the framework for 1982's "Always on My Mind," a song originally recorded by Elvis Presley that became one of Nelson's biggest hits.
Another blockbuster came in connection with Nelson's modest but favorably received film career: "On the Road Again," which was hurriedly written for inclusion on the soundtrack of the 1980 film Honeysuckle Rose, became his signature song on tour. Asked by a Fortune contributor whether he ever got tired of playing it, Nelson replied, "Not at all. It just takes me out of one town and into the next. It keeps me movin'." True to his touring barroom-band origins, Nelson remained an inexhaustible road performer through times thick and thin. In 1985 he founded an annual concert, Farm Aid, that was designed to focus attention on the financial problems of American farmers.
Ran Afoul of IRS
Nelson topped the country charts in 1984 in a duet with pop singer Julio Iglesias, "To All the Girls I've Loved Before," and the following year with "Highwayman" as part of a quartet with fellow Outlaws Jennings as well as Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson. The new influence that band-oriented rock sounds exerted on country music in the 1980s and 1990s knocked Nelson from the very top reaches of the country charts, but he had by now amassed a huge following that continued to show interest in his music. His fans also stuck with him through several much-publicized difficulties, including a $16.7 million bill from the Internal Revenue Service for unpaid taxes. Nelson paid off the debt, partly with the proceeds from a solo-vocal-and-guitar double album, Who'll Buy My Memories, that was marketed through a toll-free telephone number in 1991 and remains one of the more elusive items in the Nelson catalogue. Nelson also struggled after the suicide of his son Billy in 1991 and the subsequent breakup of his third marriage. But he married his fourth wife, makeup artist Ann-Marie D'Angelo, that same year and fathered two more children with her.
The singer remained popular partly because he never rested on his laurels. Even well into the senior citizen age range, he continued to experiment with new sounds. Another hard find for Nelson collectors was a 1984 LP of straight jazz, Angel Eyes, and Nelson continued to show an interest in jazz, releasing several albums of standards and original jazz compositions in the 1990s. He also recorded such innovative projects as the rock-oriented 1993 album Across the Borderline and 1998's Teatro, the latter produced by Daniel Lanois, a frequent collaborator with Irish rock band U2. In 2000 he recorded a blues CD, Milk Cow Blues, and he mused to the writer in Fortune that "Maybe I ought to hook up with some of those rap guys." In 2002 Nelson returned to the top of the country charts in a duet with country singer Toby Keith called "Beer for My Horses."
Despite his tumultuous personal life, during the 1990s Nelson seemed to find a sense of inner peace that cemented his status as an elder statesman of American music. Asked by Time whether he feared a backlash from conservative "red state" country fans over his antiwar song titled "Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth" in light of strong emotions regarding America's involvement in the War in Iraq, Nelson replied, "I sure hope so. I don't care if people say, 'Who the hell does he think he is?' I know who I am." That year also saw Nelson touring minor-league baseball stadiums with folk-rock great Bob Dylan. He continued to make music prolifically, installing a studio near his home "so I can cut records all day and night," he told Fortune.
Books
Contemporary Musicians, Volume 11, Gale, 1994.
Country: The Music and the Musicians, Abbeville Press, 1988.
Kingsbury, Paul, editor, The Encyclopedia of Country Music, Oxford University Press, 1998.
Periodicals
Entertainment Weekly, July 21, 1995; September 18, 1998.
Fortune, October 2, 2000.
People, August 28, 1995.
Texas Monthly, April 1998; December 1999; August 2004.
(born April 30, 1933, Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.) U.S. country music singer and songwriter. His grandfather taught him to play guitar, and by age 10 he was performing at local dances. After working as a disc jockey, in 1961 he moved to Nashville, Tenn., where he wrote hit songs for dozens of country, rhythm-and-blues, and pop singers; these songs include "Hello Walls," "Night Life," and "Crazy." Returning to Texas, he released the hit album Red Headed Stranger (1975); it was followed by Wanted: The Outlaws, which outsold every country album that had preceded it, and Stardust (1978), with songs by Hoagy Carmichael and Irving Berlin. He has recorded with at least 75 other singers, including Waylon Jennings (b. 1937). In the 1980s he organized annual Farm Aid festivals to raise money for farmers. His later albums include the critically acclaimed Teatro (1998).
Nelson, Willie, 1933-, American country singer, guitarist, and songwriter, b. Abbott, Tex. Nelson began playing professionally at 10 and joined a western swing band as a teenager. In the 1960s he moved to Nashville, where he became a successful songwriter, composing such tunes as "Funny How Time Slips Away" and the Patsy Cline hit "Crazy." Nelson returned to Texas in the 1970s and during that decade came into his own as a performer, creating the blues-rock-country hybrid known as "outlaw music" and becoming enormously popular. He achieved great success with the albums Shotgun Willie (1973) and Red Headed Stranger (1975) (containing the hit "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain") and also began performing widely in concert tours, singing for a country-crossover audience. Among his later albums are Wanted: The Outlaws (1976), Stardust (1978), City of New Orleans (1984), The Promised Land (1986), Across the Borderline (1993), Teatro (1998), and the comprehensive collection One Hell of a Ride (2008). Nelson had federal tax problems in the 1980s, but they were resolved by the 1990s, in part with revenues from The IRS Tapes (1991). He has performed in a number of films, including The Electric Horseman (1979), Honeysuckle Rose (1980), and Wag the Dog (1998), and is well known for sponsoring Farm Aid concerts.
Representative Albums: "Nite Life: Greatest Hits and Rare Tracks, 1959-1971," "Greatest Hits (& Some That Will Be)," "One Hell of a Ride"
Representative Songs: "On the Road Again," "Always on My Mind," "Night Life"
Biography
As a songwriter and a performer, Willie Nelson played a vital role in post-rock & roll country music. Although he didn't become a star until the mid-'70s, Nelson spent the '60s writing songs that became hits for stars like Ray Price ("Night Life"), Patsy Cline ("Crazy"), Faron Young ("Hello Walls"), and Billy Walker ("Funny How Time Slips Away") as well as releasing a series of records on Liberty and RCA that earned him a small, but devoted, cult following. During the early '70s, Willie aligned himself with Waylon Jennings and the burgeoning outlaw country movement that made him into a star in 1975. Following the crossover success of that year's The Red Headed Stranger and "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain," Nelson was a genuine star, as recognizable in pop circles as he was to the country audience; in addition to recording, he also launched an acting career in the early '80s. Even when he was a star, Willie never played it safe musically. Instead, he borrowed from a wide variety of styles, including traditional pop, Western swing, jazz, traditional country, cowboy songs, honky tonk, rock & roll, folk, and the blues, creating a distinctive, elastic hybrid. Nelson remained at the top of the country charts until the mid-'80s, when his lifestyle -- which had always been close to the outlaw clichés with which his music flirted -- began to spiral out of control, culminating in an infamous battle with the IRS in the late '80s. During the '90s, Nelson's sales never reached the heights that he had experienced a decade earlier, but he remained a vital icon in country music, having greatly influenced the new country, new traditionalist, and alternative country movements of the '80s and '90s as well as leaving behind a legacy of classic songs and recordings.
Nelson began performing music as a child growing up in Abbott, TX. After his father died and his mother ran away, Nelson and his sister Bobbie were raised by their grandparents, who encouraged both children to play instruments. Willie picked up the guitar, and by the time he was seven, he was already writing songs. Bobbie learned to play piano, eventually meeting -- and later marrying -- fiddler Bud Fletcher, who invited both of the siblings to join his band. Nelson had already played with Raychecks' Polka Band, but with Fletcher, he acted as the group's frontman. Willie stayed with Fletcher throughout high school. Upon his graduation, he joined the Air Force but had to leave shortly afterward, when he became plagued by back problems. Following his disenrollment from the service, he began looking for full-time work. After he worked several part-time jobs, he landed a job as a country DJ at Fort Worth's KCNC in 1954. Nelson continued to sing in honky tonks as he worked as a DJ, deciding to make a stab at recording career by 1956. That year, he headed to Vancouver, WA, where he recorded Leon Payne's "Lumberjack." At that time, Payne was a DJ and he plugged "Lumberjack" on the air, which eventually resulted in sales of 3,000 -- a respectable figure for an independent single, but not enough to gain much attention. For the next few years, Willie continued to DJ and sing in clubs. During this time, he sold "Family Bible" to a guitar instructor for 50 dollars, and when the song became a hit for Claude Gray in 1960, Nelson decided to move to Nashville the following year to try his luck. Though his nasal voice and jazzy, off-center phrasing didn't win him many friends -- several demos were made and then rejected by various labels -- his songwriting ability didn't go unnoticed, and soon Hank Cochran helped Willie land a publishing contract at Pamper Music. Ray Price, who co-owned Pamper Music, recorded Nelson's "Night Life" and invited him to join his touring band, the Cherokee Cowboys, as a bassist.
Arriving at the beginning of 1961, Price's invitation began a watershed year for Nelson. Not only did he play with Price -- eventually taking members of the Cherokee Cowboys to form his own touring band -- but his songs also provided major hits for several other artists. Faron Young took "Hello Walls" to number one for nine weeks, Billy Walker made "Funny How Time Slips Away" into a Top 40 country smash, and Patsy Cline made "Crazy" into a Top Ten pop crossover hit. Earlier in the year, he signed a contract with Liberty Records and began releasing a series of singles that were usually drenched in strings. "Willingly," a duet with his then-wife Shirley Collie, became a Top Ten hit for Nelson early in 1962, and it was followed by another Top Ten single, "Touch Me," later that year. Both singles made it seem like Nelson was primed to become a star, but his career stalled just as quickly as it had taken off, and he was soon charting in the lower regions of the Top 40. Liberty closed its country division in 1964, the same year Roy Orbison had a hit with "Pretty Paper."
When the Monument recordings failed to become hits, Nelson moved to RCA Records in 1965, the same year he became a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Over the next seven years, Willie had a steady stream of minor hits, highlighted by the number 13 hit "Bring Me Sunshine" in 1969. Toward the end of his stint with RCA, he had grown frustrated with the label, which had continually tried to shoehorn him into the heavily produced Nashville sound. By 1972, he wasn't even able to reach the country Top 40. Discouraged by his lack of success, Nelson decided to retire from country music, moving back to Austin, TX, after a brief and disastrous sojourn into pig farming. Once he arrived in Austin, Nelson realized that many young rock fans were listening to country music along with the traditional honky tonk audience. Spotting an opportunity, Willie began performing again, scrapping his pop-oriented Nashville sound and image for a rock- and folk-influenced redneck outlaw image. Soon, he earned a contract with Atlantic Records.
Shotgun Willie (1973), Nelson's first album for Atlantic, was evidence of the shift of his musical style, and although it initially didn't sell well, it earned good reviews and cultivated a dedicated cult following. By the fall of 1973, his version of Bob Wills' "Stay All Night (Stay a Little Longer)" had cracked the country Top 40. The following year, he delivered the concept album Phases and Stages, which increased his following even more with the hit singles "Bloody Mary Morning" and "After the Fire Is Gone." But the real commercial breakthrough didn't arrive until 1975, when he severed ties with Atlantic and signed to Columbia Records, which gave him complete creative control of his records. Willie's first album for Columbia, The Red Headed Stranger, was a spare concept album about a preacher, featuring only his guitar and his sister's piano. The label was reluctant to release with such stark arrangements, but they relented and it became a huge hit, thanks to Nelson's understated cover of Roy Acuff's "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain."
Following the breakthrough success of The Red Headed Stranger as well as Waylon Jennings' simultaneous success, outlaw country -- so named because it worked outside of the confines of the Nashville industry -- became a sensation, and RCA compiled the various-artists album Wanted: The Outlaws!, using material Nelson, Jennings, Tompall Glaser, and Jessi Colter had previously recorded for the label. The compilation boasted a number one single in the form of the newly recorded Jennings and Nelson duet "Good Hearted Woman," which was also named the Country Music Association's single of the year. For the next five years, Nelson consistently charted on both the country and pop charts, with "Remember Me," "If You've Got the Money I've Got the Time," and "Uncloudy Day" becoming Top Ten country singles in 1976; "I Love You a Thousand Ways" and the Mary Kay Place duet "Something to Brag About" were Top Ten country singles the following year.
Nelson enjoyed his most successful year to date in 1978, as he charted with two very dissimilar albums. Waylon and Willie, his first duet album with Jennings, was a major success early in the year, spawning the signature song "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys." Later in the year, he released Stardust, a string-augmented collection of pop standards produced by Booker T. Jones. Most observers believed that the unconventional album would derail Nelson's career, but it unexpectedly became one of the most successful records in his catalog, spending almost ten years in the country charts and eventually selling over four million copies. After the success of Stardust, Willie branched out into film, appearing in the Robert Redford movie The Electric Horseman in 1979 and starring in Honeysuckle Rose the following year. The latter spawned the hit "On the Road Again," which became another one of Nelson's signature songs.
Willie continued to have hits throughout the early '80s, when he had a major crossover success in 1982 with a cover of Elvis Presley's hit "Always on My Mind." The single spent two weeks at number one and crossed over to number five on the pop charts, sending the album of the same name to number two on the pop charts as well as quadruple-platinum status. Over the next two years, he had hit duet albums with Merle Haggard (1983's Poncho & Lefty) and Jennings (1982's WWII and 1983's Take It to the Limit), while "To All the Girls I've Loved Before," a duet with Latin pop star Julio Iglesias, became another major crossover success in 1984, peaking at number five on the pop charts and number one on the country singles chart.
Following a string of number one singles in early 1985, including "Highwayman," the first single from the Highwaymen, a supergroup he formed with Jennings, Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson, Nelson's popularity gradually began to erode. A new generation of artists had captured the attention of the country audience, which began to drastically cut into his own audience. For the remainder of the decade, he recorded less frequently and remained on the road; he also continued to do charity work, most notably Farm Aid, an annual concert that he founded in 1985 designed to provide aid to ailing farmers. While he career was declining, an old demon began to creep up on Willie: the IRS. In November 1990, he was given a bill for $16.7 million in back taxes. During the following year, almost all of his assets -- including several houses, studios, farms, and various properties -- were taken away, and to help pay his bill, he released the double album The IRS Tapes: Who'll Buy My Memories? Originally released as two separate albums, the records were marketed through television commercials, and all the profits were directed to the IRS. By 1993 -- the year he turned 60 -- his debts had been paid off, and he relaunched his recording career with Across the Borderline, an ambitious album produced by Don Was and featuring cameos by Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Paul Simon, Sinéad O'Connor, David Crosby, and Kris Kristofferson. The record received strong reviews and became his first solo album to appear in the pop charts since 1985.
After the release of Across the Borderline, Nelson continued to work steadily, releasing at least one album a year and touring constantly. In 1993, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, but by that time, he had already become a living legend for all country music fans across the world. Signing to Island for 1996's Spirit, he resurfaced two years later with the critically acclaimed Teatro, produced by Daniel Lanois. Nelson followed up that success with the instrumental-oriented Night and Day a year later; Me and the Drummer and Milk Cow Blues followed in 2000. The Rainbow Connection, which featured an eclectic selection of old-time country favorites, appeared in spring 2001.
Amazingly prolific as a recording artist, Nelson released The Great Divide on Universal in 2002. A collection of his early-'60s publishing demos for Pamper Music called Crazy: The Demo Sessions came out on Sugar Hill in 2003. Later in 2003 Nelson released Run That by Me One More Time, which reunited him with Ray Price and kicked off a relationship with Lost Highway Records. It Always Will Be and Outlaws and Angels both appeared on Lost Highway in 2004, followed by the release of Nelson's long-delayed attempt at a country-reggae fusion, Countryman, also on Lost Highway, in 2005. You Don't Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker arrived the following year, along with Songbird, Nelson's collaboration with alt-country singer/songwriter Ryan Adams and his band the Cardinals. The double-disc Last of the Breed, an ambitious project that paired Nelson with Merle Haggard, Ray Price, and Asleep at the Wheel, was released by Lost Highway in 2007, followed by the Kenny Chesney/Buddy Cannon-produced Moment of Forever a year later in 2008. Also in 2008, Nelson paired with jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis for the live album Two Men with the Blues and with harmonica player and producer Mickey Raphael for some serious-repair remixes of vintage Nelson releases from RCA originally recorded between 1966 and 1970 called Naked Willie. Lost Highway, an album of duets with country and pop singers ranging from Shania Twain to Elvis Costello, appeared in 2009. Also appearing in 2009 was the jazz-inflected American Classic from Blue Note Records. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine & Steve Leggett, All Music Guide
Career Highlights: Thief, The Electric Horseman, Honeysuckle Rose
First Major Screen Credit: Saturday Night Live: Mary Kay Place (1977)
Biography
Texas born-and-bred musical legend Willie Nelson cracked into showbiz as a disc jockey in Fort Worth. He went on to join the Ray Price band, writing tunes for Price as well as a slew of other artists (Nelson's the man who penned Patsy Cline's signature tune "Crazy"). Fronting his own group, The Outlaws, Nelson played the tanktown and honky-tonk circuit before scoring with his 1975 hit "Blue Eyes Cryin' in the Rain." In 1979, he made a laudable film debut as Robert Redford's sidekick in The Electric Horseman; one year later, he starred in the C&W "Intermezzo" clone Honeysuckle Rose (1980), for which he also wrote the score, including the chartbuster "On the Road Again." Nelson's acting resumé includes several made-for-TV westerns, among them 1990's A Pair of Aces and its 1992 sequel, and a 1987 remake of Stagecoach; he also appeared as "himself"--and a very weather-beaten self it was--in a 1995 TV-movie biopic of country star Dottie West. Nelson has been awarded five Grammy Awards, and in the early 1980s he organized the annual Farm Aid Benefit, which earned him a Special Humanitarian Award. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
He has continued to tour, record and perform in recent years, and these activities, combined with his advocacy for marijuana legalization and 2006 arrest for marijuana possession, have made him the subject of renewed media attention.[1]
Nelson was born and raised in Abbott, Texas, the son of Myrle Marie (née Greenhaw) and Ira Doyle Nelson, who was a mechanic and pool hall owner.[2][3] His grandparents William Alfred Nelson and Nancy Elizabeth Smothers gave him mail-order music lessons starting at age six. He wrote his first song when he was seven and was playing in a local band at age nine.[4] Willie played the guitar, while his sister Bobbie played the piano. He met Bud Fletcher, a fiddler, and two siblings joined his band, Bohemian Fiddlers, while Nelson was in high school. While he was in high school he took part in the Future Farmers of America organization.
Nelson graduated from Abbott High School in 1951. He joined the Air Force the same year but was discharged after nine months due to back problems.[6] He then studied agriculture at Baylor University for one year in 1954.
n 1956, Nelson moved to Vancouver, Washington, to begin a musical career, recording "Lumberjack," which was written by Leon Payne. The single sold fairly well, but did not establish a career. Nelson continued to work as a radio announcer in Vancouver and sing in clubs. He sold a song called "Family Bible" for $100; the song was a hit for Claude Gray in 1960, has been covered widely and is often considered a gospel music classic.
Popular songwriter
Nelson moved to Nashville in 1960, but was unable to land a record label contract. He did, however, receive a publishing contract at Pamper Music. After Ray Price recorded Nelson's "Night Life" (reputedly the most covered country song of all time; a version of "Night Life" was even recorded by convicted killer and former cult leader Charles Manson),[7] Nelson joined Price's touring band as a bass player. While playing with Ray Price and the Cherokee Cowboys, many of Nelson's songs became hits for some of country and pop music's biggest stars of the time. These songs include "Funny How Time Slips Away" (Billy Walker), "Hello Walls" (Faron Young), "Pretty Paper" (Roy Orbison) and most famously, "Crazy" (Patsy Cline). Willie later did an album with Ray Price in 1980 called San Antonio Rose. Nelson signed with Liberty Records in 1961 and released several singles, including "Willingly" (sung with his wife, Shirley Collie) and "Touch Me."
He was unable to keep his momentum going, however, and Nelson's career ground to a halt. Demo recordings from his years as a songwriter for Pamper Music were later discovered and released as Crazy: The Demo Sessions (2003).
Austin
In 1965, Nelson moved to RCA Victor Records and joined the Grand Ole Opry. He released a string of standard, mid-60s Nashville Sound-inspired country albums, mostly produced by Chet Atkins. He had a number of mid-level chart hits throughout the remainder of the 1960s and into the early '70s, before retiring and moving to Austin, Texas. While in Austin, with its burgeoning "hippie" music scene (see Armadillo World Headquarters), Nelson decided to return to music. His popularity in Austin soared, as he played his own brand of country music marked by rock and roll, jazz, western swing, and folk influences. A lifelong passion for running and a new commitment to his own health also began during this period.
In the mid 1970's, Nelson purchased property near Lake Travis in Austin and converted Pedernales Country Club into the Perdernales Studio. The studio underwent state of the art renovations in the mid 1990's, and many top recording artists adorn its client list. Its amenities include a 9-hole golf course, tennis courts and an Olympic size swimming pool.
Nelson signed with Atlantic Records and released Shotgun Willie (1973), which won excellent reviews but did not sell well. Phases and Stages (1974), a concept album inspired by his divorce, included the hit single "Bloody Mary Morning." Nelson then moved to Columbia Records, where he was given complete creative control over his work. The result was the critically acclaimed, massively popular concept album, Red Headed Stranger (1975). Although Columbia was reluctant to release an album with primarily a guitar and piano for accompaniment, Nelson insisted (with the assistance of Waylon Jennings) and the album was a huge hit, partially because it included a popular cover of "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" (written by Fred Rose in 1945). "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" became Nelson's first number one hit as a singer.
Along with Nelson, Waylon Jennings was also achieving success in country music in the early 1970s, and the pair were soon combined into a genre called outlaw country ("outlaw" because it did not conform to Nashville standards). Nelson's outlaw image was cemented with the release of the album Wanted! The Outlaws (1976, with Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser), country music's first platinum album. Nelson continued to top the charts with hit songs during the late 1970s, including "Good Hearted Woman" (a duet with Jennings), "Remember Me", "If You've Got the Money I've Got the Time", "Uncloudy Day", "I Love You a Thousand Ways", and "Something to Brag About" (a duet with Mary Kay Place).
In 1978, Nelson released two more platinum albums, Waylon and Willie (a collaboration with Jennings that included "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys," which was written and originally recorded as a hit single by Ed Bruce a couple of years earlier), and Stardust, an unusual album of popular standards. It was produced by Booker T. Jones. Though most observers predicted that Stardust would ruin his career, it ended up being one of his most successful recordings. Willie also had a notable success with the LP titled Half Nelson, including such great artists as Ray Charles.
He has continued acting since his early successes, but usually in smaller roles and cameos, some of which involve his status as a cannabis activist and icon. One of his more popular recent cameos was a performance in Half Baked as an elderly "Historian Smoker" who, while smoking marijuana, would reminisce about how things used to be in his younger years. Nelson also appeared as himself in the 2006 movie Beerfest, looking for teammates to join him in a mythical world-championship cannabis-smoking contest held in Amsterdam. That same week Willie Nelson recorded, "Weed with Willie" with Toby Keith.
In the mid-1980s, Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, and Johnny Cash formed a group called The Highwaymen. They achieved unexpectedly massive success, including platinum record sales and worldwide touring. Meanwhile, he became more and more involved in charity work, such as singing on the We are the World single in 1984 and establishing the Farm Aid concerts in 1985.
In 1990, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) handed Nelson a bill for $16.7 million in back taxes and seized most of his assets to help pay the charges. He released The IRS Tapes: Who'll Buy My Memories? as a double album, with all profits going straight to the IRS. Many of his assets were auctioned and purchased by friends, who gave his possessions back to him or rented them at a nominal fee. He sued accounting firm Price Waterhouse, contending that they put him into tax shelters that were later disallowed.[8] The lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount.[9] His debts were paid by 1993.
In 1996, Willie Nelson was featured on the Beach Boys' now out-of-print album Stars and Stripes Vol. 1 singing a cover of their 1964 song "The Warmth of the Sun" with the Beach Boys themselves providing the harmonies and backing vocals. He also starred in Baywatch as an old man in boxer shorts.
Later Career
Willie Nelson performing at the Chumash Casino Resort in Santa Ynez, California.
During the 1990s and 2000s, Nelson has toured continuously and released albums that generally received mixed reviews, with the exception of 1998's critically acclaimed Teatro (which was produced by Daniel Lanois—more commonly known for his work with U2—and featured supporting vocals by Emmylou Harris). Later that year, he joined rock band Phish onstage for several songs as part of the annual Farm Aid festival. He also performed a duet concert with fellow Highwayman Johnny Cash, recorded for the VH1Storytellers series.
In 2007, Nelson performed with jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis in a concert at New York City's Lincoln Center, a date commemorated the following year with both a compact disc and DVD.[10]
Also in 2008, Willie Nelson teamed up with World Idol contest winner Kurt Nilsen from Norway and recorded the duet American classic "Lost Highway". The duet reached the top of the charts in Norway, and was performed live for the first time when Nelson made a surprise guest appearance at Nilsen's show in Hamar on 2 May.
Activism
In 2004, Nelson and his wife Annie became partners with Bob and Kelly King in the building of two Pacific Bio-diesel plants, one in Salem, Oregon, and the other at Carl's Corner, Texas (the Texas plant was founded by Carl Cornelius, a longtime Nelson friend and the namesake for Carl's Corner). In 2005, Nelson and several other business partners formed Willie Nelson Biodiesel[11] ("Bio-Willie"), a company that is marketing bio-dieselbio-fuel to truck stops. The fuel is made from vegetable oil (mainly soybean oil), and can be burned without modification in diesel engines.[12]
Nelson is a co-chair of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) advisory board. He has worked with NORML for years for marijuana legalization and has produced commercials for NORML that have appeared on Pot TV programs. He has also recorded a number of radio commercials for the organization. In 2005, Nelson and his family hosted the first annual "Willie Nelson & NORML BenefitGolf Tournament," which appeared on the cover of High Times magazine.
On January 9, 2005, Nelson headlined an all-star concert at Austin Music Hall to benefit the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. Tsunami Relief Austin to Asia raised an estimated $120,000 for UNICEF and two other organizations.
Nelson was a supporter of Kinky Friedman's campaign in the 2006 Texas gubernatorial election. In 2005, he recorded a radio advertisement asking for support to put Friedman on the ballot as an independent candidate. Friedman promised Willie a job in Austin as the head of a new Texas Energy Commission due to Nelson's support of bio-fuels. (Friedman was on the ballot but came in fourth with 12.43 percent, losing to Republican Rick Perry).
Nelson supported Dennis Kucinich's campaign in the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries. He raised money, appeared at events, composed a song ("Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?"), and contributing a quote for the front cover of Kucinich's book for the campaign.
In January 2008, Nelson filed suit against the Texas Democratic Party. Nelson alleges that the party violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution when it refused to allow co-plaintiff Dennis Kucinich to appear on the primary ballot because he had scratched out part of the loyalty oath on his application.[13]
Nelson is an advocate for horses and their treatment. He has been campaigning for passage of the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (H.R. 503/S. 311) with the Animal Welfare Institute. He is on the Board of Directors and has adopted a number of horses from Habitat for Horses.[15]
In March 2007, Ben & Jerry's released a new flavor, "Willie Nelson’s Country Peach Cobbler Ice Cream". Nelson's proceeds will be donated to Farm Aid.[16] The flavor has been re-released[17] and is now available, after Ben & Jerry's voluntary recall of 250,000 pints of the new flavor on March 19, 2007, as wheat was incorrectly excluded from the list of ingredients.[18]
Willie Nelson founded the Willie Nelson Peace Research Institute in April 2007. Nelson and his daughter Amy Nelson wrote a song called "A Peaceful Solution", which they released into the public domain, and encouraged artists to render their own version of the song, which he would feature on the Institute's web site.[19]
Nelson questions the official story of what happened on September 11. On February 4, 2008, Nelson appeared on Alex Jones's radio show and talked about the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, stating his belief that the Twin Towers and WTC7 were imploded: "I saw one fall and it was just so symmetrical, I said wait a minute I just saw that last week at the casino in Las Vegas and you see these implosions all the time and the next one fell and I said hell there's another one - and they're trying to tell me that an airplane did it and I can't go along with that."[20]
Nelson released the song "Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other," a song promoting the awareness and acceptance of homosexuality, in reference to gay cowboys, as a digital single through the iTunes Music Store on Valentine's Day 2006, shortly after the release of the film Brokeback Mountain. The song was encouraged by Nelson's tour manager and close friend David Anderson, who said "This song obviously has special meaning to me in more ways than one. I want people to know more than anything—gay, straight, whatever—just how cool Willie is and … his way of thinking, his tolerance, everything about him."[21] Regarding the song, Nelson quoted "The song's been in the closet for 20 years. The timing's right for it to come out. I'm just opening the door."
Personal life
Willie Nelson has been married four times and fathered nine children.
Martha Matthews from 1952-1962, children are Lana, Susie, and Billy (who died in 1991)
Nelson is widely recognized as an Americanicon. His distinctive music and other social and political activities sometimes take a backseat to his pop-culture public image (firmly grounded in the acknowledged reality of his life) - that of an elderly, lifelong marijuana-smoking, tax-evading, biodiesel-burning, old-school cowboy-hippietroubadour. His image is marked by his red hair, often divided into two long braids partially concealed under a bandana. He has been featured in recent advertisements for a variety of products and companies, including a 2002 spot directed by Peter Lindbergh for Gap where he performs Hank Williams' "Move It On Over" alongside Ryan Adams.
Willie Nelson during a show in Cardiff, January 2007
In 2005, Democratic Texas Senator Gonzalo Barrientos introduced a bill to name 49 miles of the Travis County section of State Highway 130, after Nelson. At one point, Barrientos had 23 of the 31 state Senators as co-sponsors.[25] The legislation was dropped after two Republican senators, Florence Shapiro and Jeff Wentworth, pulled the bill from the Senate's "Local and Uncontested Calendar" and Barrientos decided not to put it on the regular calendar. Republicans' objections were based on Nelson's lack of connection to the highway, his fundraisers for Democrats, his drinking and his marijuana advocacy.[26][27]
Nelson volunteered to narrate "The Austin Disaster, 1911", a little-known documentary about a flood in Potter County, Pennsylvania (see Floods in the United States). Before the tragedy, an unrelated William "Willie" Nelson repeatedly warned residents of possible dam failure.[28] Nelson also spoke at an AIDS benefit in San Diago, California in 2002. He was chosen to speak at the event after the loss of a close friend who died from AIDS.
In 2002 he released the album, The Great Divide. A few songs on the album were written by Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20 and Bernie Taupin. Rob Thomas contributed background vocals and made an appearance in the video for, "Maria (Shut Up and Kiss Me)." Lee Ann Womack appeared on the song, "Mendocino County Line" which was also released as a single (Mendocino County is an actual county located in California. Mendocino county voters approved Measure G, which calls for the decriminalization of marijuana when used and cultivated for personal use). Other guests on The Great Divide include Kid Rock, Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow, and Alison Krauss. Willie also covered Cyndi Lauper's, "Time After Time."
Willie Nelson performed a duet on "Beer for my Horses" with
