Briarcliff July, 4, 1979. Photo by Scott Newton
There aren’t nearly enough letters in the alphabet to fully describe Willie Nelson’s epic life, but we’ll have to make do with the 26 letters we do have. And Scott Newton’s photography.
A- Abbott. Willie’s hometown, a small, tight-knit farming community 30 miles north of Waco. It remains a special place for him. About 10 years ago, he bought the Methodist church where he sang every Sunday. Willie’s teenage parents divorced when he was 6 months old, so he was raised by his paternal grandparents.
B- Bobbie, Sister . Willie’s musical soulmate is his older sister (by two years). A piano player in Willie’s band Family since 1972, Bobbie Nelson’s been playing with Willie since she was 6 and he was 4.
C- Cowtown. The ambitious Nelson got his first bit of recognition in the music biz after moving to Fort Worth in 1955. He sang live on KCNC, where he hosted the “Western Express” program. From 1 to 1:30 every afternoon, Willie would play naptime music for kids, including an Arthur Smith hit called “Red Headed Stranger.” Fort Worth is also where he met stringed instrument master Paul Buskirk, who turned him on to Django Reinhardt records.
D- Dunn’s Trailer Court. “Trailers for sale or rent” starts the Roger Miller classic “King of the Road,” which was inspired by his stay at this Nashville landmark. When Willie, his first wife Martha, and their three kids moved to Nashville from Houston in 1960, they lived in the same trailer as did Miller, his wife and their three kids.
E- English, Paul. “Me and Paul” is one of the best buddy songs ever written. This former street hustler, who always carried a gun in his boot (maybe still does), has been Willie’s drummer since 1966. Leon Russell wrote “You Look Like the Devil” after English, who used to wear a black cape with red trim.
F- ‘Family Bible.’ Willie’s first Top 10 hit, recorded by Claude Gray. Busted broke in Houston in 1958, Willie sold all the rights to the song to Buskirk for $50 and a steak dinner, figuring he’d just write more.
G- Golf. Willie’s passion besides music. He got hooked on the links after his house in Tennessee burned down in 1971 and he moved, temporarily, to a dude ranch in Bandera that had a golf course.
H- Highwaymen. The country supergroup, named after a Jimmy Webb song, featuring Willie with fellow legends Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash. During rehearsals, Willie kept putting dibs on songs that the others were reluctant to learn the words to until, by the time the tour started, he had more lead vocals than the others. “I was wondering how Willie had time to learn all those songs,” Jennings said one night in Fort Worth, “then I looked over and he had all the lyrics on a music stand. I could have strangled him.”
From the film “Honeysuckle Rose”
I- Irving, Amy. We’ve heard enough about Willie’s IRS troubles, so let’s give the letter I to the actress with whom he had a fling during the filming of “Honeysuckle Rose.”
J- Jazz. As a guitarist, Willie is more of a jazzman than a country player. Primarily influenced by 1930s gypsy jazz guitarist Reinhardt, he’s recorded several jazz records, including Two Men With the Blues with Wynton Marsalis.
K- Koepke, Connie. Willie’s third wife – and Paula and Amy’s mom – was a statuesque beauty from Houston. Connie helped Willie come up with the concept for Red Headed Stranger on the drive from a ski trip in Colorado to Austin in January 1975.
L- Lana, Susie, Billy, Paula, Amy, Lukas, Micah. Willie’s kids from oldest to youngest. Not counting the DNA baby who showed up a few years ago and has been accepted by Willie as his daughter.
Classic Willie. July 4, 1979 Briarcliff. Photo by Scott Newton.
M- Movies. His heroes Bob Wills and Gene Autry made movies, so Willie jumped at the chance to appear in Sydney Pollack’s The Electric Horseman in 1979. He’s starred in about 20 movies so far, ranging from the semi-autobiographical (Honeysuckle Rose, Songwriter) to Westerns (Barbarosa, Red Headed Stranger) and bad Jessica Simpson flicks (Blond Ambition, Dukes of Hazzard). “Acting’s like singing,” Willie says, “except there’s no melody.” Other notable M’s in Willie’s life include Maui, where he’s had a place since the ’70s, marijuana and Mama Nelson, the grandmother who raised him.
N- Nineteen seventy-two. Willie’s first show at the Armadillo World Headquarters on Aug. 12, 1972, was the official start of the Outlaw Country movement. About half the crowd of 450 paid their $2 to see opening act Greezy Wheels, but there were also hard-core Willie fans who’d seen him earlier at the Broken Spoke or Big G’s in Round Rock.
O- ‘One Hell of a Ride’ (Legacy). Spellbinding four-disc boxed set that touches on Willie’s entire career.
P- Price, Ray. Willie’s bandleader in the Cherokee Cowboys, in which Willie played bass for $50 a night even after he had struck Nashville gold as a songwriter. The two remained pot-smoking buddies until Price passed away in December 2013 at age 87.
Willie and the Coach. Photo by Scott Newton.
Q- QVC. After the IRS hit him up for $16.7 million in back taxes, Willie started selling The IRS Tapes: Who’ll Buy My Memories? on the shopping channel. He also shilled for Taco Bell.
R- Russell and Royal. No two Okies could be more different than songwriter Leon Russell and former football coach Darrell Royal, but they remain two of Willie’s closest friends. In the midst of winning national championships, Royal organized pickin’ parties (“listen or leave”) and introduced Willie to a harmonica wiz named Mickey Raphael. Russell was a musician Willie admired greatly and sought when he started appealing to hippies.
S- ‘Stardust.’ When they heard the concept of 1978’s Stardust, Columbia Records thought Willie had gone insane. Why would Willie do an album of pop standards? But Stardust remains Willie’s best-selling album.
T- Twelve thousand dollars. The total cost to record 1975’s Red Headed Stranger in Garland. The stark, stripped-down record, which featured the career-making smash “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” was Willie’s first on Columbia.
U- University of Illinois. The first Farm Aid took place in Champaign. Except for 1988 and 1991, Farm Aid, co-founded by Willie, Neil Young and John Mellencamp, with Dave Matthews joining later, has taken place every year.
V- ‘Valentine.’ The beautiful ballad from Across the Borderline written for newborn son Lukas. In 1993, it seemed as if Willie’s best artistic days had passed, but this song and “Still Is Still Moving,” from the same album, proved that Willie still had some great songs in him.
W- Waylon. The Sundance Kid to Willie’s Butch Cassidy, the often-gruff Waylon Jennings was quite different from Willie offstage. But the two approached music the same way, with a wild, independent streak, and both thrived only when Nashville kept out of the creative process.
X- Put an X on September 19, when the 30th annual Farm Aid takes place in Chicago.
Y- ‘Yesterday’s Wine.’ Willie’s first concept album planted the seeds for Red Headed Stranger, but in some ways Yesterday’s Wine is a better album because of heavy spiritual overtones (“In God’s Eyes”) that connect Willie with his upbringing. Gospel music has always been a huge part of Willie’s life, and he and Sister Bobbie have made some great records of religious music.
Z- Zen. An enlightened state of letting go of judgmental and self-conscious thinking and instead living in the moment. Sound like anybody we know?