Country Music

[Professor Knowall]

So we’re in 1973, when Waylon Jennings delivered his first album totally under his artistic control. Just to recap first before starting with the music - up to 1973, almost everything in Nashville was controlled by a few men - mainly RCA producer Chet Atkins, and the Acuff-Rose Publishing Company. Nearly all music coming out of Nashville was recorded at RCA’s Studio B (now a must-see site when in Nashville). The songs recorded by artists were written by dedicated full-time songwriters and selected and arranged by record label producers. All studio musicians were selected by the producer, and were unionized so that no outside musicians (from an artist’s touring band like the Waylors, for example) were allowed.

As previously mentioned, Bobby Bare was the first country artist to break the system (posts # 465 & 772). Bare started his career with Atkins at RCA, then moved to Mercury Records in 1970. Atkins wanted Bare back at RCA and wanted to ease himself out of production, so he offered to let Bare produce his own work. "I didn’t have to fight or wrastle or argue or anything about it. Chet Atkins just gave it up. I said okay, and that was it. He gave it up, I didn't fight for it” Bare later recalled. When Waylon heard about Bare’s deal, he went to Atkins and asked for the same freedom - but was initially rebuffed. Years later it came out that Atkins trusted Bare and what he would do (or, more the point, wouldn’t do) but, perhaps not without some justification, didn’t trust the hard partying, drug addicted Jennings and what he would do left to his own devices, without supervision or someone of authority to restrain his wilder tendencies. He doubted Waylon could deliver a worthwhile album on his own. Some years later, Chet Atkins admitted he was wrong (and even played guitar for Waylon on stage for a TV special).

Enter not a musician, but slick New York lawyer, Neil Reshen. As mentioned yesterday, Reshen helped 2 disgruntled artists - Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings - wrestle control of their music. Willie and Waylon were inspired to do this by watching Bobby Bare and rock musicians receive almost unilateral control over their music. Willie had left RCA and eventually signed with rock label, Atlantic, with complete creative control. Waylon stayed with RCA, but established full control over his music the likes of which had never been seen before on Music Row.

The first full album Waylon recorded under his new contract was an album of Billy Joe Shaver songs in 1973 “Honky Tonk Heroes”. In order to get right away from the RCA studio system, Waylon chose to record it at an independent studio, Tompall Glaser’s “Hillbilly Central”. This was one of the most significant moves in country music history, because after Reshen’s legal maneuverings, it broke the back of the Music Row monopoly, and opened the floodgate for artists to be able to record their music outside of RCA’s “Studio B” (or Studio A) and without using union studio musicians. It also ushered in a period where label-owned studios became virtually extinct, and independently-owned studios thrived.

The recording of ‘Honky Tonk Heroes’ at Hillbilly Central became a spectator sport of sorts as those in the know made their way there to watch the recordings being made and join the parties being held there, often attended by Waylon’s bikie friends. Despite the partying, Jennings and his band was serious about their music and duly delivered. The album was edgy, stripped down, and revolutionary. All songs but one were composed by Billy Joe Shaver (how this came to be was explained in post # 773). These songs ranged from the hard-driving title track to the up-tempo ‘Black Rose‘, about an interracial romance, to the gritty, slow-paced ‘Ride Me Down Easy‘ (which were both featured on last weeks Billy Joe Shaver segment). Waylon also took on a new look to go with his new sound. Gone was the slicked-back hair and clean-shaven face. At his manager’s suggestion, new Waylon sported shaggy shoulder-length hair and a beard he had grown in his hospital stay.

So Billy Joe Shaver wrote most of “Honky Tonk Heroes”, including the title track, but it was Jennings who injected the album with roughnecked, rocky-tonk attitude, bridging the gap between the rootsy twang of country music and the rule-breaking stomp of rock & roll. Jennings also threw a bone to his road band, the Waylors, who had been contractually blocked from performing on any of his RCA records previously. Fueled by the hard-won freedom to finally call his own shots - and, if the album's cover art is any indication, a good bit of alcohol - Jennings turned ’Honky Tonk Heroes‘ into the mother of all outlaw country tunes, starting slow as he draws you into the enclosed (and back then smoky) honky tonk, with it’s usual raft of mis-fits, boozers and losers, then ups the tempo into a honk tonk celebration. -


Although much of the Nashville establishment predicted that Jennings would flop with the radical changes he was making, he soon proved them wrong. Record companies aren’t particularly known for their patience these days. In 1974, things were drastically different. Nine years had passed since the singer signed with RCA, and he had never hit the top of the charts. ‘This Time’ changed all that, becoming the first Jennings song to hit # 1 in 1974 and his second # 1 in Canada. Waylon had help from co-producer Willie Nelson and feels more like West Coast folk than country, even with Mickey Raphael’s harmonica. In the song, the singer is coming back to his love interest but, like in many of his other songs, he’s warning her it’ll be the last time if she doesn’t treat him better. The strong beat, combined with the lyrical content about giving his significant other an ultimatum, connected with audiences - crucially a younger demographic than mainstream country music was attracting at that time - in a way no Jennings release had ever done before -


Waylon’s next album, also from 1974, was “The Ramblin’ Man”. Many of his songs prominently featured Waylon’s vocal strength and extraordinary and unique guitar skills more than ever before, proof that by 1974, he had effectively found his voice, perfecting his sound in the process. The title track, ‘I’m A Ramblin’ Man’, was originally recorded by writer Ray Pennington in 1967, reaching # 29. Not to be confused with the same/similar titled songs by Hank Williams Sr. or The Allman Brothers, this strong tempo song captures Jennings’ spirit in its clippity-clop beat, infectious guitar work and the hard-hitting lyrics warning a lover to stay away from this rolling stone, not to mess around or fall in love with him unless she wants to get hurt, cause he’s, you know, a rambling man. This description wasn’t far off the mark for Waylon himself at the time. Jessi Colter did not heed that warning -
“… Well, up in Chicago / I was known as quite a boy / Yes I was /
Down in Alabama / They call me the man of joy / Still do /
Well, I'm a ramblin' man / Don't fall in love with a ramblin' man …” -


’Rainy Day Woman’ was another gem co-written with fellow outlaw Tompall Glaser, though a little more traditional than some of his edgier music. By 1975, Jennings had his sound down almost to an exact science, Its catchy melody pushed it to # 2. The peppy (check out that pedal steel solo) yet rather angry story about a woman who never looks on the bright side of things, upsets Jennings as he sings -
“… That woman of mine she ain't happy / 'Til she finds something wrong and someone to blame /
If it ain’t one thing it’s another one on the way…” -


’Dreaming My Dreams With You’, written by Allen Reynolds, another Top 10 hit in 1975 was, many years later, nominated by Waylon as the recording he was most proud of, and rightly so. Even by country music standards, this achingly sad, incredibly touching yet somehow sweet, tender song about a totally gutted man looking back on a failed relationship with devastating regret, was nothing short of genius. Jennings turned in a wistful performance, wringing the emotion out of every line. With covers by such artists as Rodney Crowell, Martina McBride, Crystal Gayle, Emmylou Harris and Alison Krauss amongst others, this is probably the most recorded song of all of Jennings’ hits -


Waylon Jennings, by insisting on following his own course had, at age 38 in 1975, climbed to the top of the country music tree - and in doing so, he had found a new young generation eager for his brand of country music. The term “Outlaw“ had spread ever since the release of 1973’s “Honky Tonk Heroes “ album to describe him and his cohorts. Even greater success awaited Jennings as the “Outlaw” era reached its crescendo. Back tomorrow.

 

[Purple7x08_24]

Very chilled country/blues style song. Really underappreciated music because everybody wants fireworks in a song

 

[Professor Knowall]

We closed yesterday with the sad and tender title track from the “Dreaming My Dreams” album in 1975. But standing out the most from that album at the time was ‘Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?’, a pounding rock like anthem with lyrics in which Waylon sharply contrasted the lame modern-day Nashville establishment with the legendary Hank Williams (see posts # 205-214), whose arrival in Nashville shook up and changed country music and whose legacy still cast a big shadow over country music 25 years after his death (and even lingers on to this day). Of all the songs Jennings has written, none has galvanized country fans quite like ’Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?’, which, besides being another # 1 hit for him, has lived on as the unofficial anthem of the whole Outlaw era.

The song looks at Country’s changing sound through the eyes of its revered patriarch, Hank Williams. Whether it's a positive or negative view is open to debate. One on hand, the opening verse states the "… Lord it's the same old tune, fiddle and guitar / Where do we take it from here? / Rhinestone suits and new shiny cars / It's been the same way for years / We need to change… ". But by the time Jennings sings "… tell me one more time just so I understand, are you sure Hank done it this way?… ", it’s like he’s saying "you gotta be shitting me" in his query. Progressive minded artists favour the more benign interpretation - Keith Urban once projected a clip of Jennings singing the opening verse on his tour's jumbo screens - while country purists use the titular question to take genre-bending artists to task. But a look at the second and third verses reveals neither of these interpretations are correct. Waylon was clearly having a go at the Nashville establishment for all the hard times they gave him, constraining his music for so many years, compared to old Hank, who waltzed into Nashville and allowed to do things his way. It’s also just a damn fine bit of writing -
“… Somebody told me when I came to Nashville / Son you finally got it made /
Old Hank made it here, we're all sure that you will / But I don't think Hank done it this way / …
Ten years on the road, making one night stands / Speeding my young life away /
Tell me one more time just so I'll understand / Are you sure Hank done it this way? /
Did old Hank really do it this way?” -


“I grew up on music we call Western Swing …” sings Jennings, who is proud to be from Texas where “… Bob Wills remains the king.” First things first here - if you don’t know who Bob Wills is, and about his special significance to Texan music in particular, even down to the current day, thanks to a line of artists who idolised and were influenced by him, including Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson and George Strait, check out his potted history and music on posts # 132 - 140

A live recording of ‘Bob Wills Is Still The King’ was first released in 1975 as the concluding track of the “Dreaming My Dreams” album and then the B-side to ‘Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way’ single, and soon got a plenty of airplay on its own - and remarkably also went to # 1, thanks mainly to its huge popularity in Texas. It’s pure Jennings (Willie Nelson is name checked) until about 3/4 through, when the tempo changes to something closer to Wills’ music (ironically, of all the major Texan country music stars, Waylon‘s sound shows the least Wills influence). The live version, the first time it had ever been performed in public, was recorded at the Texas Opry House in Austin, before what owner Willie Nelson later described as "a crowd that had jammed in there shoulder to shoulder so tight that even the fire marshall couldn't get out”. Despite their unfamiliarity with it, the audience responds robustly to each mention of Texas in the song - and hence starting a Texan tradition each time this song is ever performed by anyone in Texas (e.g. When the Rolling Stones performed it in Austin in 2007, now on YouTube).

The song contains allusions to Bob Wills‘ signature song ’San Antonio Rose’, Wills‘ famed lead singer Tommy Duncan, Wills‘ band The Texas Playboys, the honky tonks of Texas, the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and the Red River borderline one crosses when going from Tennessee to Texas. The song also quotes from The Sir Douglas Quintet 1969 song, ’At The Crossroads‘ - "You just can't live in Texas if you ain't got a whole lot of soul". The basic group instrumentation features pedal steel guitar and harmonica, both of which lend credibility to the performance's Western origins. The song gained some renown even before it was released as one verse of it was quoted by a story published in May 1975, the day after Bob Wills died -
“… You can hear the Grand Ol' Opry in Nashville, Tennessee / It’s the home of country music, on that we all agree / But when you cross that ol' Red River, hoss, That just don't mean a thing / Once you're down in Texas, Bob Wills is still the King”. The song concludes, in another verse about Texas, with lines directed at his friend and collaborator - “It's the home of Willie Nelson, the home of Western swing / he’ll be the first to tell you, Bob Wills is still the King” -

Actually, there’s a strong argument that ‘Bob Wills Is Still The King’ actually took aim at country trends, including the outlaw movement he and friend Willie Nelson had done so much to create - an example of Waylon's eagerness to poke fun at the highfalutin music industry - in this case, Willie Nelson and the redneck country rock thing down in Texas, as per the lyrics - “It don't matter who's in Austin / Bob Wills is still the king…". Jennings often said he wrote the song in 20 minutes because he was mad at Willie about something at the time. Willie‘s 2015 memoir It's a Long Story interprets the song as a good-natured jibe against him, one that Jennings had specially prepared once he knew he would be recording a live album in Nelson's Texas Opry House and he praised it once Waylon came offstage, writing -"Truth be told, I really did like the song. And besides, he'd sung the gospel truth: far as I was concerned, Bob Wills was still the king”. Indeed, in his earlier 1988 work, Willie: An Autobiography, Nelson had described growing up and witnessing Bob Wills as a charismatic, magnetic force – comparable to Elvis Presley. From watching Wills in action, through good nights and bad, Nelson said he learned how to be a compelling front man of a band. So lets just let this song be a tribute from one Texan legend to an earlier Texan legend, and liked by yet another Texan legend.

A cut that wasn’t a hit at the time but remains a favourite among Jennings fans, ‘Waymore’s Blues’ is also from 1975’s “Dreaming My Dreams” album, Jennings first million-seller/gold certified release. Just as the 2 songs above can serve as tributes to legends Hank Williams and Bob Wills, the lyrics here start by being an apparent tribute to one of the foundational country music artists, the legendary Jimmie Rodgers (see posts # 120-122 for his considerably short-changed history). However the lyrics soon divert off to some spelt out doggeral before leading to lines alluding to Waylon’s own legendary womanising, despite his marriage to the very loyal and forgiving Jessi Colter - ‘Well I got a good woman, what’s the matter with me / What makes me wanna love every woman I see?’. It’s a question so many of us can relate to - and not have a good answer to. Anyway, this song is really all about the music, not the lyrics, and this is definitely a song where live versions are better, so I chose this one from a performance at The Grizzly Rose Saloon in Denver Colorado (another great country and western music venue to this day, mechanical bull and all), and also, as a bonus, it includes his 1981 # 5 hit (# 1 in Canada), ’Shine’, which Waylon also wrote -


From his 1972 “Harvest” album, Neil Young never released ‘Are You Ready For The Country’ as a single, so Waylon took a crack at it in 1976 and made the song, which he took to # 7, the title of his 1976 album. Despite its title, the album contains several country rock covers as Waylon continued developing his brand of outlaw country music, though the peak of his creative spark had, in hindsight, passed. Despite the lyrics lacking substance apart from a couple of elusively weird images that don’t appear to mean anything, remains a fan favorite if only for the lyrics Jennings altered from "… Are you ready for the country? / Because it's time to go" to "… Are you ready for the country? / Are you ready for me?”. It was re-recorded by Waylon in 1995 (produced by his son, Shooter) for one of his final studio albums -


Another country rock cover from the “Are You Ready For The Country” album, ’Can’t You See’ was written by Toy Caldwell of The Marshall Tucker Band for their 1973 debut album. Jennings took it to # 4 and went all the way to # 1 in Canada - actually Jennings consistently charted even better in Canada than the U.S. (though of course, it was a much smaller market overall). The song was noted as being dark – another with a man reflecting on his heartache after his “mean ol’ woman“ left him. In this song, he just seems defeated, ready to give up, not considering he might be better off without her -
“… I'm gonna find me / A hole in the wall / I'm gonna crawl inside and die /
'Cause my lady, now / A mean ol' woman, Lord / Never told me goodbye …” -


By 1976, Waylon’s records were selling like crazy, and the establishment had no choice but to acknowledge his success. The CMA named him as its Male Vocalist of the Year in 1975. Staying true to his rebel, outlaw persona, Waylon refused to attend the awards event, proclaiming he was opposed to the concept of artists competing for awards. But in 1976, Waylon pretty much joined the establishment - and cashed in big time. But more on this - and more music - tomorrow.

 

[Professor Knowall]

In 1976, RCA, which up to 3 years prior had resisted Waylon’s wishes for artistic freedom, now, took the direct opposite view, deciding to fully capitalise on the whole “outlaw” phenomenon in 1976 by approaching Waylon and pitching an idea to have previously released material that concentrated on Waylon but also featured songs from his wife Jessi Colter, Willie Nelson, and, on Waylon’s insistence, Tompall Glaser. Waylon readily agreed. The album, despite having little new material, but cleverly titled by RCA “Wanted! The Outlaws” (and with an iconic old western “Wanted” poster as the album cover) was a runaway winner, reaching # 1 not just on the country, but also the pop charts, becoming the first million-selling album in country music history. The top hit generated by the album was the Waylon-and-Willie duet version of Waylon’s previously released “Good Hearted Woman.”

Following the success of “Wanted: The Outlaws”, Waylon, who had now truly crossed over and became a superstar, as well known to the mainstream pop audience as he was to the country audience. For the next 6 years, Jennings' albums consistently charted not only in the country but also in the Top 40 pop charts. He later let everyone in on a little secret - when they had picked out the songs for the aforementioned album, a lot of them were 10-plus years old. He also admitted that, in the end, it really was a brilliant move from a purely business standpoint. Now all this doesn’t sound like an “Outlaw“ sort of thing to do - and Waylon himself was by now cynical of the way the label “Outlaw” was being used - he had got the artistic freedom he wanted and was now more than happy to walk arm-in-arm with RCA and the establishment - but on his terms.

On his 50th birthday in 1987, Waylon spoke about the album and what the term “Outlaw” meant to him - “You know what, let’s get all that up front, the way it really was. That was to merchandise and sell records. I remember when they were gonna call that album The Outlaws, and I had been called that before ... But I tell you, I argued against that because there was a group called the Outlaws. A great group, and we probably sold some records on the strength of people thinkin’ it was that group, because it says “Wanted: The Outlaws”. I argued with them about it until we were about an inch away from them changing their minds, but it did work out pretty good. … Me and Willie and Tompall Glaser, and of course my wife Jessi Colter. Now she is about as much an outlaw as Mickey Mouse. As sweet as she is, it’s awfully hard to call her an outlaw. But they like to categorize things a lot. … About the closest thing that Willie ever did to bein’ an outlaw is that he probably came to town and double-parked on Music Row…”.

But then again, Waylon had decided at the time of the album recording that Willie needed to redo some of his old tracks and had him come in the studio and lay down new vocals. That was pretty illegal for a lot of reasons having to do with publishing rights and all, because Willie was no longer with RCA Records, who still owned the rights and put the album out, but Willie was signed with rival Columbia Records at the time - “Now I’ll tell it, because it won’t hurt anything anyways, but I made Willie come in and re-sing some of that stuff, which was against the law.” Which sounds pretty damn outlaw to me!

This immense success in marketing was followed by 1977’s “Ol’ Waylon”, a rock-influenced collection that included what would arguably become Waylon’s signature song, ‘Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)’. The song is a nostalgic, heartrending tribute to the simpler things in life and rekindling the flame in a small Texas town. Anchored by big, booming, baritone vocals and a tip of the cowboy hat to pre-outlaw pioneers like Hank Williams and Jerry Jeff Walker (who recorded a live album, “Viva Terlingua“ at the Luckenbach Dancehall in 1973 and famously put a photo of the front of the dancehall on the album cover). It stayed on top of the charts for 6 weeks, one of the most successful songs of Jennings' career. The song is ostensibly about a rich couple whose money is driving them apart and wanting a simpler life, but can also be interpreted as being about the impact immense success has had on the friendship of Waylon and Willie, which had sometimes been strained on occasions on various matters over the previous couple of years (albeit they always patched things up), as the song also references Waylon himself, as well as Willie, who even got a piece of the vocal action, singing the song's final verse - a foretaste of the “Waylon and Willie” album that would appear anyear later -
“… Let's go to Luckenbach, Texas / With Waylon and Willie and the boys /
This successful life we're livin' / Got us feuding like the Hatfields and McCoys /
Between Hank Williams' pain songs and / Newbury's train songs and ’Blue Eyes Cryin' in the Rain’ /
Out in Luckenbach, Texas, ain't nobody feelin' no pain …” -

The strangest story of this song is that despite the fact Texan native Jennings frequently toured around and played in all sorts of Texan cities and towns over the years, he somehow never got to visit and play an actual gig in Luckenbach and it’s famous dancehall until July 4, 1997, 20 years after he recorded this classic. I don’t know what took him so long.

Jennings was in a celebratory mood with the release of the Chips Moman and Bobby Emmons composition, ‘The Wurlitzer Prize (I Don’t Want To Get Over You)’, which was very much an old school sounding number - more a throwback to the “classic country” sound of the early-to-mid 1960’s, but yet another # 1 hit for him in 1977, showing yet again his great ability to deliver a slow, tender, heartbreak ballad to balance his harder rock influenced anthems. The song, about a heartbroken person unable to even want to get over their lost lover, made an impact on future generations, with cover performances turned in over the years by artists such as Norah Jones and Kacey Musgraves -


In 1978, the 2 top outlaws in were united yet again in a collection of duets titled “Waylon & Willie”. Out of that album came another signature tune, Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys’ Later in 1978 came Waylon’s album “I’ve Always Been Crazy”, featuring the energetic autobiographical title song, complete with horn section. Released during the peak of his popularity, ’I've Always Been Crazy‘ was a self-penned hit about how he was as a person – flaws and all – that doubled as both apology and defiant mission statement. Not long after being made an honorary police chief in Nashville in 1977, Jennings was arrested during a recording session, on charges of conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine. Luckily for Jennings, his drummer, Richie Albright, first managed to both alert Jennings to the raid and divert the attention of the raiders, so the package was able to be quickly hidden. Jennings then noticed a mistake in the warrant (it listed him as the owner of the studio he only rented), and by the time they returned with a valid warrant, the package contents had been flushed down the toilet.

Waylon, who was considered a trouble-maker even at school, a tough guy not to be messed with, always knew he was a little different, and marched to the beat of his own drummer - but still reeling from the cocaine bust, he was growing tired of being the de-facto spokesperson for the “Outlaw” image. The song was his honest reflection of a man who was being forthright about everything, but stopping short of apologizing - after all, he was what he was — and damn proud of it! This take-me-or-leave-me anthem paid tribute to his being different while setting his frustrations to music - "I've always been crazy… nobody knows if it's something to bless or something to blame", he sang in the song's final verse, letting his own audience judge his fate. They responded by sending the album to the top of the charts for 2 months in 1978 -
“I've always been crazy and the trouble that it's put me through / I've been busted for things that I did, and I didn't do /
I can't say I’m proud of all of the things that I’ve done / But I can say I’ve never intentionally hurt anyone…" -


The “I’ve Always Been Crazy album also featured ‘Don’t You Think This Outlaw Thing‘s Got A Bit Out Of Hand‘, a song that musically describes both Waylon’s recent arrest for cocaine possession but also his growing weariness with his “outlaw” image. This was Jennings' personal statement on the state of the outlaw movement at the time. Although being an outlaw started as being more about artistic freedom than behaviour, by now, the “Outlaw” image was being taken very literally by a couple of other misbehaving artists - one in particular who Waylon found to be increasingly pesty (but I’ll leave him for later) - and Jennings, in a song that, in hindsight, foreshadowed the end of the whole Outlaw era, considered it had now been pushed by some other far beyond what, as far as he was concerned, was a movement that simply grew out of the desire to gain artistic control and a marketing device, not for media attention or anything else. Released as a single in 1978, it reached # 5 in the U.S. and yet another # 1 in Canada. Another best heard live, I’ve chosen this performances on Austin City Limits from 11 years later in 1989, with a now very rotund Waylon, but singing better here than at the height of his earlier cocaine era (more on that later) -
“I'm for the law and order the way it should be / This song's about the night they spent protecting you from me /
Someone called us outlaws in some old magazine / And New York sent a posse down like I ain't ever seen /
Don't you think this outlaw bit's done got out of hand? / What started out to be a joke the law don't understand …” -


Written by Bob McDill, ‘Amanda’ was originally recorded by Don Williams, before he became a major star, in 1973 but only released on an album (see post # 757). Jennings first recorded the now classic track for his 1974 album “The Ramblin’ Man“, however, he also didn’t release it as a single. Five years later, just a month before the birth of his son Shooter, Waylon ducked into the recording studio to add some new lyrics to ’Amanda’. The new version - including the revised line - "… I got my first guitar when I was 14 / Well, I finally made 40, still wearing jeans… " (I guess in those days it was usually the young who wore jeans, now it’s the opposite) - was included on Waylon’s 1979's “Greatest Hits” album, a best-of compilation that capped the most successful decade of his career. Sung by a man who was now nose-deep in a crippling cocaine addiction (both physically and financially), ‘Amanda’ was soft and sweet, proof again that even the roughest of outlaws had a smooth side. Perhaps when he was singing ‘Amanda’, he was thinking of his long suffering wife, Jessi, who still stood by him, despite everything -


By 1979, Jennings had had a long history of taking amphetamines, starting right back in the early 1960’s in Phoenix, before he came to Nashville in 1965 - where he shared an apartment with fellow pill-popper, Johnny Cash, as outlined a few days back, leading to a full blown addiction. But following the pill-driven death of Elvis Presley in 1977, Jennings was determined to get off the pills and he soon succeeded - but only by replacing amphetamines with cocaine, leading to his 1977 arrest briefly outlined above. But, though he somehow avoided any further arrests, he was soon hopelessly addicted to cocaine -but more on this tomorrow - along with his music as we move into the 1980’s and the end of the Outlaw era.

 

[Professor Knowall]

Today will trace Waylon’s career from 1979 to 1984, a period starting with Jennings still riding high in the charts - but also high on a serous cocaine addiction that was now costing him a fortune. By 1984, Waylon’s popularity and the outlaw era were in decline, thanks to changing tastes, a conservative backlash against the excesses of the outlaws and Waylon’s own drug induced lack of creativity in this period - though in 1984, by going cold turkey in an isolated Arizona farmhouse, he had finally kicked his drug addiction once and for all. I‘ll let Waylon tell his own story, from an interview he conducted on for his 50th birthday in 1987 - “… I took pills, uppers, and cocaine. I did pills until cocaine became fashionable. You know, we were a little late getting cocaine in Nashville. I guess I did about 10 years of each. … I must have the constitution of 10 men, because right at the end I was doin’ like $1,500 a day in cocaine (that’s almost $5,000 in today’s money). I would stay up, and this was a 20-year ritual. I would stay up until I’d crash and then I’d get up. You know, one of the things that I always bragged about was that I never had a hangover. But the deal was, I never gave myself the chance to have a hangover. Because the minute I hit the floor, I hit the floor doing either pills or cocaine.

I wasted a lot of years ... I could have been a lot more creative... I spent the last 5 years that I was on drugs. I withdrew completely from people. I spent more time alone, sitting in my room, with that cocaine bottle in my hand, when I could have been very creative. The thing I am sorry about the most, … the bad thing about it, … it’s your life, you can destroy it if you want to. But look at the people around you, that care about you; think about what it’s doin’ to them. You don’t have to destroy their lives too. And that’s what it does. I actually think it’s worse on them than it is on yourself: because they have to sit and watch someone they love and care about destroy themselves. That was one of the reasons why I was able to pull out of it, because I saw it on my wife Jessi’s face.

(In 1984) I went out to Arizona … and leased a house, but I had no intention of quittin’. I was just gonna hole up and get the heat off me a little bit, from everybody around me. But I told Jessi … that in 30 days I’d be back doin’ cocaine again and you might as well get ready for that. But I am gonna try and get back on my feet, get off it and stay off it for 30 days and clean up. But after all the pain, mentally and physically … the first couple of weeks when you’re tryin’ to pull up from it, it messes with your sleep. So I spent some time alone, I’d wake up at odd hours and I would just go out and sit out at the back of the house. But then I got seein’ my mind clear enough and seein’ what it was doin’ to her.

That was it - What it was doin’ to her and my little son, who was about 5 years … his attention span was longer than mine when I was on drugs. He would reach out to me, and I would be there for a minute… and he knew something was wrong with me, even though he was little. Now he refers to that time as when Daddy used to cuss. But anyway, I thought: I want to see him grow up. And I really had no intentions of quitting until I did that, until my mind cleared up and I saw what I was doing, that I was killing people around me, people that were friends of mine. And I was losing everything. You know, the bad about it is I had hit the bottom. I was a mess. I couldn’t even drive a car because I had dizzy spells. I was gonna put it off for 2 or 3 months, goin’ out there and cleanin’ up. But something told me … that I’d better go now. …”.

Time to get back back to Waylon’s music, starting with a 1979 hit in which the title somewhat describes him at the time. Written by Rodney Crowell and first recorded by Emmylou Harris, this live fast, die whenever anthem ‘I Ain’t Living Long Like This’ took on new energy when Jennings wrapped his by now rough-hewn baritone around it - perhaps the hardest rocker of Jennings’ career. While he may not have done exactly everything the lyrics talk about (although he did run afoul of the law in 1977 for cocaine possession), Jennings sings it with such believability one can believe he was a lifelong jailbird, further cementing his image as a badass. Today the song remains a honky tonk staple with artists from Justin Moore to Andy Griggs offering interpretations, while Vince Gill and Grand Ole Opry favorite Chris Janson performed it together on the Opry stage. Waylon took it to # 1 in the U.S. and Canada -
“… I live with Angel, she's a roadhouse queen / Makes Texas Ruby look like Sandra Dee /
I want to love her but I don't know how / I'm at the bottom of the jailhouse now …” -


Perhaps not the best Waylon song, but surely one of his most recognizable ones, ‘Good Ol’ Boys’ was the theme from the popular 1980’s TV show The Dukes of Hazzard. As the narrator of the 1979-85 rednecks-in-hot-rods (not the nasty racist types, just your basic country bogan larrikins) series, Jennings set the stage for Bo and Luke Duke's car-jumping adventures in a comic celebration of southern country stereotypes. His radio background proved beneficial for his weekly job as “The Balladeer,” the show’s narrator. He would record his intros and outros to the show at radio stations across the nation each week. It was also Waylon’s voice singing the tailor-made theme song he wrote especially for the show. It was the second single from his 1980 album “Music Man.” With Dukes proving popular, the parenthetically titled ’Good Ol Boys’ also took off on radio, racing up to # 1 in the U.S, # 2 in Canada. All that viewers normally saw of him during the show was his hand strumming his customized leather-covered Telecaster at each episode’s opening. While its lyrics obliquely referenced the law-bending main characters, Jennings wrote directly about his own below-the-neck appearances on the show in the final verse - "… I'm a good ol' boy / you know my mama loves me / but she don't understand / they keep a-showing my hands / and not my face on TV“ - a glimmer of self-referential brilliance -


’Just to Satisfy You‘ also went all the way to # 1 in the U.S. and peaked at # 2 in Canada in 1982. The duet with Willie (yet another) comes from the album “Black on Black“. This version proved to be considerably more successful than when it was first recorded and released way back in 1963 by a then little known Waylon Jennings before he went to Nashville, and Don Bowman. The song takes aim at a serial heartbreaker and warns of consequences to come because of their selfish behaviour - though at first it remains ambiguous as to just who will suffer - it’s just “someone”. It also implies the question - how many is enough? The second verse is more explicit with its warning directed right at the heartbreaker and the unasked, but heavily implied, question here is - is it all worth it? -
“… Someone's gonna get hurt before you're through / Don't be surprised if that someone is you /
You're gonna find when it's too late, / a heart that just won't break / To satisfy you / just to satisfy you…”


The 1984 tune, ’I May Be Used (But Baby I Ain’t Used Up)’ succeeds on its title alone as the 47 year old Jennings sings with the gruff, cocaine affected, get-off-my-lawn voice of a guy who’s had a few decades of experience. He’s definitely still up for some hot-lovin’ - though, convincing a potential romantic interest, or even just a casual hook-up, with the pick-up line - “… It ain’t how you look, it’s what you got under the hood… ” mightn’t seem the best choice of words - but who am I to argue with Waylon, who probably ever needed to rely on pick-up lines. Bad to the bone! -


By 1984, the turbulent 1970’s, with its economic setbacks, high crime, the loss of the Vietnam war and weak leadership had been left behind, replaced by a renewed, confident strong America that had instead re-emerged, with a booming prosperous economy, falling crime rate, the L.A. Olympics and, with the very popular Reagan as President, a return to conservative values and a strong sense of patriotism. Jennings, leaving his outlaws days behind him and catching the new mood, performed the song ‘America’ on a TV special for the restoration of the Statue of Liberty. The publicity was a great factor for the single to peak at # 6 and it was even nominated for Song of the Year. Sammy Johns, known for his 1975 hit ’Chevy Van‘, penned the patriotic song, and also found more success by writing the # 1 hit "Desperado Love" for Conway Twitty. This song very much matched the optimistic and patriotic mood of America in the prosperous 1980’s -


By the mid-1980’s, the momentum of Waylon's career began to slow somewhat, due to his drug abuse and the decline of the entire outlaw country movement. As detailed above, years of addiction to amphetamines and cocaine, as well as decades of womanizing, were taking a serious toll on his marriage and family life as the 1970’s stretched into the 1980s. The birth of his and Colter’s only child together, Waylon Albright “Shooter” Jennings, in 1979 began to prompt him to turn his life around. (Jennings had 6 older children from his 3 previous marriages). After retreating to Arizona to force himself to detox and finally succeeding in kicking his substance habits cold turkey in 1984, Jennings enjoyed a career revival, though this time more as an elder statesman of country music - but he never shed his black clad Outlaw image as he continued to tour and record. Tomorrow will trace his career to it’s end

 

[Professor Knowall]

In 1985, Jennings, having finally kicked his drug addictions (apart from chain smoking tobacco), though now binge eating loads of junk food instead, was again riding high - not as a solo act but as a member of The Highwaymen with his peers, legends and long-standing friends, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson, formed in 1985. The group was marketed as being the original Outlaw musicians, though in fact Cash was never part of the Outlaw movement and even Kristofferson only played a bit part (as per post # 772). The quartet had a big # 1 hit with ‘Highwayman’ in 1985, launched a number of tours and 3 albums together over the next decade, but none of them were more successful than their debut, which spawned the # 1 single.

Waylon also had a solo hit of his own in 1985 with ’Drinkin’ And Dreamin’. It mightn’t be as well regarded as many of his 1970’s Outlaw era songs, but this honky tonker has some great lyrics that speak so much truth for some - perhaps more than you might think unless you’re one of the , who just feel the urge to break free and hit the highway - “… When I look down the road / she don't know how it gets under my skin / She's got my body / but my heart and soul are out there ridin' the wind...”. That line “She’s got my body / but my heart and soul are out there riding the wind” ... that whole line has such a deep meaning for people who settle and maybe it wasn’t their destiny to be with that person. Some travel a lot and can relate to many Waylon songs. One might get lonely on the road but also find freedom, new encounters and companions and feel happy there, even for just short periods. Others can’t, or won’t, break free, and so resort to other means -
“… Drinkin' and dreamin' / Knowin' damn well I can't go. / I'll never see Texas, L.A. or Old Mexico. /
But here at this table, I'm able to leave it behind. / Drink 'til I'm dreamin', a thousand miles out of my mind …”. -


Also in 1985, Jennings finally parted ways with RCA, signing with MCA Records the following year. At first, he had several hit singles for the label, including his 15th and final # 1, with ‘Rose In Paradise’. Written by Jim McBride and Stewart Harris, through this mysterious track with lyrics about a jealous banker who apparently killed his beautiful but cheating wife and her lover - or did he? -
"… Every time he talks about her / you can see the fire in his eyes /
He says I would walk through Hell on Sunday / to keep my Rose in Paradise..."


By the end of the 1980’s, Jennings appeared no longer able to crack the Top 40. But in 1990, Waylon switched labels again, signing with Epic. ’Wrong‘ proved that he still had a few hits left in him, though he was already considered a legend. The Class of '89 - Garth Brooks, Clint Black, Alan Jackson and Travis Tritt - were starting to control the charts with the new, young big hat country movement, leaving less room for the veterans of the genre. But the humorous single accompanied by some calypso steel, dobro and a comical video gave Jennings the final Top 5 hit of his career -


Despite his decreased sales, due to the shifting tastes in country music, and his music no longer receiving radio air-play, Waylon remained a big star with a loyal fan base throughout the 1990‘s, able to draw large crowds whenever he performed a concert, while many of his records continued to receive positive reviews from critics. In 1996, he signed to Justice Records, where he released the acclaimed “Right for the Time”. In 1998, Jennings was also part of another supergroup called the Old Dogs with Bobby Bare (posts # 464-468), Mel Tillis (posts # 648-657), Jerry Reed, and producer Shel Silverstein. “Closing In on the Fire” followed in 1998, his final studio album. The title track was a sizzling slice of swamp rock written by the king of that genre, Tony Joe White.

In January 2000, Waylon played his final major concert, and it was one for the ages. It was, appropriately, at the The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville - aka the “Mother Church of Country Music”. By 1999, it became obvious to Waylon and his closest friends and family that his health was failing and unlikely to improve, even though he kept that information mostly close to the vest, and kept battling. Years of abusing his body with cocaine and 6 packs of cigarettes daily and then copious amounts of fried junk food after he’d weened himself off had taken its toll. Though the last thing Waylon would do is stage a farewell tour, he did assemble what he called his “hand-picked dream team” of musicians that he named The Waymore Blues Band. He took long-time members from his original band The Waylors - including his legendary right-hand man and drummer Richie Albright - and adding ringers such as the steel-guitar and mandolin/acoustic master, Robby Turner and legendary session guitarist Reggie Young, Waylon also conscripted a complete horn section - in total, 13 players. No-one realised it at the time, but it was an epic farewell. Luckily, there were both film and audio crews on hand to capture it all, later released as a DVD in 2007 called “The Final Concert”.

Waylon was ailing, and had to sit as opposed to stand to perform, but his voice and his attitude was as strong as ever, telling the crowd after the second song - “I guess y’all noticed I’m sittin’ on this chair. And that ain’t all old age. I kinda hurt my back and my legs. But I’m gettin’ around. Y’all don’t worry about me. I can still kick ass - you’ve just got to bring ’em up here … I don’t want you girls worrying about me either, ’cause once you’ve had a cripple, you never go back”.

Anyway, from that now historic concert, I’ve chosen the titles track from his final studio album In 1998, ‘Closing In on the Fire’, a sizzling slice of country swamp rock written by the king of that genre, Tony Joe White -


And to farewell Waylon Jennings, I’ve chosen another song from that final concert, ‘Storms Never Last’ - and frankly, it’s not amongst his great songs, being a relatively minor # 17 hit back in 1981, and there were a number of better songs I could’ve chosen from the concert. But I chose this sentimental piece because it was a song he performed with the great love of his life, his wife, Jessi Colter, who put up with a helluva lot - though she must’ve had a pretty good idea what she was getting herself in for when she became Waylon’s 4th wife in 1969. It was a marriage no-one (including probably even Waylon himself) expected to last, given his constant womanising, which continued for years, his amphetamine addiction, which in 1977 turned to a cocaine addiction, ballooning out to a $1,500 a day habit that had them close to financial ruin and divorce before he finally kicked the habit in 1984 - and then his junk food binging began.

When asked about his womanising on his 50th birthday in 1987, Jennings confessed and remarked - “… Oh yeah, and Jessi’s had a lot of things to understand. You know, I’d been married 3 times before. Jessi and I have a very honest relationship. Things I did then I can change now. It wasn’t easy on her. She’s probably the only person in the world that would put up with me. In fact, I would venture to say that she is the only person in the world who could have been married to me and stayed with me”. Well, stay with him she did, even though she appeared to not be able to modify his behaviour much - proof, I guess, that ladies really do love outlaws! So ’Storms Never Last’ sorta tells a love story with a difference here. Notice how they sing it to each other, not the audience -


Waylon Jennings was elected into the Country Music HoF in 2001. Still sticking with his rebel ways, he did not attend the ceremony saying the distinction meant “absolutely nothing, if you want to know the truth about it.” But he did send his son Buddy to accept the award on his behalf. In truth, by this time Waylon’s health had seriously worsened and his very poor condition probably prevented him travelling from his Arizona home to Nashville. Waylon’s health had been in decline for many years, and he suffering from serious cardiovascular and respiratory problems. In 1988, 4 years after quitting cocaine, he finally ended his 6 pack-a-day smoking habit. That same year, he underwent open heart bypass surgery. But it was his poor diet that got him in the end - he eventually developed type 2 diabetes and associated complications. By 2000, his diabetes worsened, reduced his mobility to the point he was forced to end most touring and finally necessitated amputation of his left foot in December 2001. On February 13, 2002, Waylon died in his sleep at his home in Arizona. He was 64. His wife, Jessi, is still alive and active in country music.

Waylon Jennings's music had an influence on numerous artists, including Hank Williams Jr., The Marshall Tucker Band, Travis Tritt, Steve Earle, Waylon, Eric Church, Cody Jinks, Jamey Johnson, John Anderson, his son, Shooter Jennings, Sturgill Simpson, and Hank III - in other words, many of the best, most genuine country musicians of the last generation.

You may be relieved to know I’m hitting those country roads again for a bit over a week, though this time staying in Victoria. When I’m next back in # 10 days or so, it’ll be with another Outlaw pioneer, an absolute legend and a Texan cultural icon - no prizes for guessing who.

 

[Professor Knowall]

I’m back and relieved to bring into this history series someone I‘ve been worried for a while might die of old age before I ever got to him. But thankfully he remains true living legend and an American - and even more so a Texan - cultural icon - and I rate him as the greatest country singer-songwriter after Hank Williams. From his humble beginnings in rural small-town Texas, he has built a celebrated career as one of America’s greatest songwriters, most recognisable idiosyncratic vocals, a pioneering “outlaw” musician, a social activist, and a philanthropist. He has one of the most original and beloved personas in American popular culture, known for his long braided hair, his beat-up multi-autographed Martin classical guitar named “Trigger,” his well-traveled old tour bus named “Honeysuckle Rose” and his outspoken (and fairly successful) advocacy for legalising marijuana - though he quit smoking weed last year at age 87 for health reasons.

Willie Nelson (his actual birth name) was born in 1933 in the tiny town of Abbott in east-central Texas. His mechanic father, Ira and his mother Myrle, divorced when he was only 6 months old, his mother left home to work as a dancer, honky Tonk angel and card dealer. Willie and his 2 year older sister Bobbie, who later played piano in Willie’s Family band, were raised by their paternal grandparents. Young Willie enjoyed hanging out in his grandfather’s blacksmith shop. Both grandparents encouraged Willie and Bobbie to play music. Willie got his first guitar and enrolled in mail-order lessons at age 6 years, and he started writing his own songs at age 7. In addition to religious musical influences, Willie was exposed to wide range of other musical styles while growing up in the 1940s. These included not only the classic country of Hank William and Hank Snow, but the Western swing of Texans Bob Wills and Ray Price, the Texan honky-tonk country of Ernest Tubb and Lefty Frizzell, the big-band pop of Frank Sinatra, the jazz of Louis Armstrong and the jazz guitar stylings of Django Reinhardt. Polka music was very popular in the central part of Texas where Willie Nelson lived because of the German and Czech populations.

Willie unsurprisingly didn’t like the hard, painful work of picking cotton so from age 9 he began playing guitar and singing in a local band to earn money. In high school he joined a honky-tonk band called Bud Fletcher and the Texans, playing the local club circuit. Bobbie, who played piano in the group, later married Fletcher. Willie also performed at dance halls and honky tonks with local German and Czech polka bands (another heritage staple of Texan music) from age 13 through high school. He was quite popular (local teenage girls founded the Willie Nelson Fan Club), but stayed in Abbot High in order to compete in sports, being also a very talented all-round sportsman, playing as a football halfback (high school football in Texas is huge, watched by thousands live), a basketball point-guard, and a baseball shortstop and pitcher, attracting some interest from pro-team scouts.

To make extra money, Willie, at age 14, also became a local music promoter, booking other acts at venues close to his home, including some of his musical idols, including the Western swing legend himself, Bob Wills, as he later recalled - “Early in my life, I was a young promoter. I was putting together shows. Bob Wills, I hired for $750 to play over in Whitney. I hauled a piano on the back of a pickup over, so that his band could have a piano. I managed to take in enough money and pay him. But I was only 14 years old. And I got up to sing with Bob Wills! So, it was as good as it gets”.

After his high school graduation in 1950, like so many other southerners at the time, including most artists so far in this history series, Willie did a stint in the armed services, joining the Air Force, stationed at San Antonio, but after 8 months he had to leave because of back problems. He then got married and studied agriculture at Baylor University in Waco for 2 years. He also continued playing music in local clubs. To make ends meet during this time, he also took on a series of odd jobs, including door-to-door encyclopedia salesman, tree trimmer, and, being handy with his fists, a nightclub bouncer. Finally dropping out of college to follow his music dreams, Willie worked as a radio dj for several years while writing songs and played gigs whenever he could.

With the equipment of the station, Nelson made his first two recordings in 1955 on used tapes, and sent the demos to a local record label, which rejected them. He moved around as a dj, ending up in the large city of Fort Worth, where he hosted a live country music radio show, taught Sunday school, and played in nightclubs. He movedto San Diego but unable to find a job there, he hitchhiked to Portland, Oregon, where his mother lived, but nobody picked him up so he ended up sleeping in a ditch before hopping a freight train bound for Oregon. A truck driver drove him to a bus station and loaned him $10 for a ticket to reach Portland.

Nelson landed a dj job in Vancouver, Washington, and appeared frequently on a TV show. He made his first record in 1956, which failed. He continued working as a radio announcer and singing in Vancouver clubs. He next performed in a Colorado nightclub, later moving to Springfield, Missouri. After failing to land a regular spot on the Ozark Jubilee country music TV show, he worked as a dishwasher moving back to Texas. After a short time in Waco, he settled in Fort Worth, and quit the music business for a year, selling bibles and vacuum cleaners door-to-door, eventually became a sales manager.

After his son Billy was born in 1958, the family moved to Houston. On the way, Nelson stopped by the Esquire Ballroom to sell his original songs to house band singer Larry Butler. Butler refused to purchase the song ’Mr Record Man‘ for $10, instead giving Nelson a $50 loan to rent an apartment and a 6 night job singing in the club. Nelson also again worked as a radio dj. During this time, he recorded two singles. Nelson was then hired by guitar instructor Paul Buskirk to work as an instructor in his school. During this period - the late 1950s - Nelson penned a number of songs that would later become major hits for various artists. These included ‘Night Life‘, ‘Crazy‘ and ‘Funny How Time Slips Away’. He also wrote a gospel song, ‘Family Bible‘ that reflects the family and religious influences of his childhood. He sold the song for $50 and it became a hit for Claude Gray in 1960. Willie also sold the rights to ‘Night Life’ to Buskirk for $150. Using that cash, he decided to seriously pursue his music ambitions by moving to Nashville. Nelson met Nashville’s leading songwriters Harlan Howard and Hank Cochran at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, where they all liked to hang out and raise hell. After hearing more original songs by Nelson, including ’Touch Me’, Howard convinced his superiors at Pamper publishing to hire Nelson as a songwriter for $50 p/w. Howard later also arranged for Nelson to be signed to Liberty Records in 1961. Willie also joined Ray Price’s Cherokee Cowboys band as the bass player (taking the place of Johnny Paycheck).

From the start of his Nashville career in 1960, Nelson was already exercising his songwriting muscle and hawking tunes around to other performers. Most songs Nelson writes are best associated with his quirky twang and ability to sink just about any arrangement right into his offbeat phrasing. Faron Young was one of the first to notably take on one of Nelson's tunes, with ’Hello Walls‘ (see post # 262) - a tragicomedy about a man who’s so lonely that he speaks to his own bedroom about his heartbreak - becoming a huge success in 1961, spending 23 weeks in the charts. Willie, who was both a hard-partying hell raiser and a keen, but not always prudent, poker player, was so broke he offered to sell the songwriters rights to ‘Hello Walls‘ to Young for $500. But Young had already recorded the song and it was well on its way to becoming a massive hit. Knowing a big payday was on the horizon and being an honourable friend, Young loaned Willie the $500 instead, allowing Nelson to keep the rights. Less than 2 months later, while ‘Hello Walls‘ was enjoying a 9 week run at # 1, Nelson received a $20,000 royalty check. Elated, he headed to Faron’s favourite honky-tonk, Tootsie’s, to express his thanks with some surprise PDA - Young recalled in the biography “Live Fast, Love Hard: The Faron Young Story” - “I was sitting at Tootsie’s and this big hairy arm came around my neck, and Willie french-kissed me. … It’s probably the best kiss I ever had!“ -

Willie released his smooth-crooning version of ‘Hello Walls’ for his 1962 album “...And Then I Wrote”. By this time, he had become one of Farron Young’s infamous group of hell-raisers that regularly hang out to the morning hours at Tootsie‘s Orchid Lounge, just across the road from the Ryman, drinking, pill-popping (though Willie chose weed instead of pills), playing poker, fighting and having impromptu jam sessions of music they had just written - thus becoming an important meeting point between the singers and song-writers who joined the gang.

One of the great classics of Nelson's career, ‘Funny How Time Slips Away‘ was written during the same spectacularly creative week as ‘Crazy‘ and ‘Night Life‘ and was first recorded by Billy Walker in 1961, who took it to # 23. Teen idol Jimmy Elledge then took it to # 22 on the pop charts. Willie made his own version the following year on the fundamental “...And Then I Wrote” Album and since then it has seen hundreds of cover versions - here’s a small sample of the artists who have recorded this song, besides Walker and Nelson himself - Wanda Jackson, Joe Hinton, Brenda Lee, The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Ray Price, Jerry Lee Lewis, Rick Nelson, Tom Jones. Georgie Fame, Joe Tex, Elvis Presley, Lulu, Bryan Ferry, Tina Turner, Johnny Cash, B.B. King & Bobby Bland, Lucinda Williams and, above all, the torrid soul version by Al Green in 1973. Originally a somewhat bitter tinged ballad about a short-lived relationship ending in betrayal, the song has grown into something bigger - a textbook example of the sort of ageless song that lives on -


‘Crazy‘ is not only the best song Willie Nelson ever wrote, it is, quite simply, one of the best songs in the history of popular music - that is, however, in the glorious version of Patsy Cline (see post # 389), who is possibly the best female interpreter of the genre. Here you can appreciate Nelson's love of jazz and heartbreak from a young age, melody is just so good and classy. Nelson had originally hoped fellow Texan and Grand Ole Opry member Billy Walker would record ‘Crazy‘, Cline's husband Charlie Dick had previously taken her a demo of Nelson's ’Night Life‘ but Cline disliked the song, and asked her husband not bring her any more of Nelson's songs, saying she didn’t want to record compositions that embraced vulnerability or lost love.

The persistent Hank Cochran, convinced that Nelson had written the perfect song for Patsy Cline, drove Nelson to Cline's house with the demo of ’Crazy‘. While Nelson waited in the car, Cochran played the song for Cline, who told Cochran to bring Nelson into the house, where he taught her to sing the song. Cline had difficulty following Nelson's phrasing because he sang behind the beat. Willie, in his demo tape, sang it with his unique, unpredictable phrasing, with each word landing somewhere before or mostly after the actual beat. Cline, after some initial problems in trying to follow Willie’s version which got stuck in her head, eventually, at Owen Bradley’s suggestion and taking a day’s break from recording, took a different approach, smoothing out the imprecision she’d heard on Nelson’s demo in favour of her own steady, controlled and masterful vocals. Patsy Cline’s recording of ‘Crazy‘ became one of the defining ballads of the 20th century and recognised now as one of the greatest country songs of all time -

One year later, Nelson released his own version for his 1962 album “...And Then I Wrote” and for a song about hopeless desire, some devoted fans consider Nelson’s is perhaps the more effective performance, delivered with the halting hesitancy of someone who’s coming to grips with their own craziness, but I wouldn’t go that far - Cline’s version will forever be the standard.

Along with Cline's ’Crazy‘, Willie’s fellow Texan, band leader and life long friend, Ray Price's hit recording of ’Night Life‘ (see post # 272) established Nelson as an elite country music songwriter. It's since been recorded by not just Nelson but also the likes of Aretha Franklin, B.B. King and even Thin Lizzy. A salute to the midnight plus hours, the song fires twin barrels of sad-eyed storytelling and six-string riffage, creating a call-and-response between Nelson’s late-night observations (“… Listen to the blues they’re playing!… ”) and the guitar parts that follow. As much a blues and jazz song, this genre-blurring gem has served as an anthem for many an entertainer since Willie wrote it during his formative days as a songwriter for other artists.

With deceptively simple and lean lyrics, it managed to convey both regret and self-respect. Credit for those mid-song riffs goes to Paul Buskirk, who bought the song‘s rights from a perpetually cash-strapped Nelson for $150 and joined him on the original recording back in 1960 - but only under Buskirk’s name - who then on-sold the rights to Ray Price, who recorded a cover of it as the title track of his 1963 album “Night Life”. The song became a hit for Price (ironically with the original writer of the song, Willie, now the bass player in his band), who subsequently used it as the introduction to all his concerts and shows, replacing the usual backing fiddles with the blues guitar. Price said in the introduction to the song that it was "especially written for him by a boy down Texas way“. That same year, Doris Day also recorded the song for her album, “Love Him” -

The original 1960 recording by Nelson was re-released for the first time under his own name in 1963.

To finish today’s music selection, here we have Willie, immaculately attired in suit and tie, his neat hair carefully combed, singing all the above hits he had written but sung by others, in a medley at the Grand Ole Opry. By the time Nelson first took the Opry stage, being inducted in 1964, he had already released two albums - “And Then I Wrote” in 1962, followed by “Here's Willie Nelson, in 1963, both on Liberty Records. He had also earned two Top 10 hits, Willingly’, a duet (his first of hundreds to come over the decades) with Shirley Collie and ’Wake Me When It's Over‘, which was his first hit from “And Then I Wrote”. Nelson became a regular at the Opry following his first performance, playing up to 26 shows a year. This special was filmed for a TV special in 1965 -


Looking at old black-and-white videos of the young, conservatively dressed, short-haired, clean-shaven Willie Nelson we can see how forcefully repressed was the real Willie that we know today. Willie’s attempted resistance to these efforts at cramping his style made him an “outlaw” well before the term came to be applied in the country music business, as did his reputation as a hard-partying free spirit.

Willie’s own first album, released in 1962, “… And Then I Wrote”, featured 12 of Willie’s originals. The album failed to generate much notice within the industry. It seemed that Willie’s songs could be successful only when they were sung by other people. Willie’s singing style was too unusual, plaintive and noncommercial for the country music of that era. The Nashville music producers and promoters weren’t sure what to do with him - and the problem was, they did too much. But more on this tomorrow, with Willie, determined to make it as a performer, not just a great song-writer.

 

[Professor Knowall]

Willie Nelson definitely didn’t fit into the traditional Nashville country music scene of the 1960‘s. His record company from 1964 onwards, RCA, dressed him up in a suit, and producers tried to make him fit into a countrypolitan mold. His unique singing style, however – with his typically behind-the-beat phrasing and unadorned vocals – was less appreciated, and Nelson eventually found himself tiring of rejection and longing for a place where he could be himself. Willie’s singing has sometimes been mocked as nasally. Even his good friend and frequent singing partner Waylon Jennings would often have a bit of fun doing his Willie impersonation while pressing his nose closed with his finger. However, Willie actually sings in a baritone that can switch easily between octaves. He uses off-the-beat phrasing, which he has frequently attributed to his Frank Sinatra influence. His band plays with a rather gritty road-house sound that incorporates elements of country, blues, jazz, and rock.

In his 2015 memoir, Nelson said - “At RCA, I tried to follow Chet Atkins as best I could. I went along with his suggestion that we call my first album for the label “Country Willie: His Own Songs”. I also went along with his idea that I re-record some of my songs that had been hits for other artists. ... On all of them, though, Chet added the requisite sweeteners – heavy string sections and heavenly choirs that were supposedly making my music more palatable. It didn’t work”.

Willie’s first 2 successful singles as an artist were released in 1962, including ’Willingly‘ - a duet with his soon-to-be second wife, Shirley Collie, which became his first charting single and Top Ten 10 hit and ’Touch Me‘, first released in 1962 on the album “…And Then I Wrote” and, released as a single in Nelson's own voice, not by another artist, became his second top 10 hit but his first chart success as a solo artist, reaching # 7. Both the songwriting - here we have the tender pleas of a beaten, heartbroken person - with it’s conversational aspect, along with the vocals, are both unmistakably Willie -


In 1957, Nelson was living in Fort Worth in poverty, down on his luck, struggling to support his wife and young family. He quit the music business for a year, becoming a salesman. During this time, he was inspired to write ’Mr. Record Man’, while he was driving on the highway with the radio turned on. He penned the song about a man, who after listening to a song on his car radio, feels compelled to buy the record, relating the words of the song to his own lost love, sadness and loneliness.

After his son Billy was born in 1958, still struggling with financial issues, he moved to Houston. On the way, Nelson stopped by the Esquire Ballroom to sell songs to house band singer Larry Butler. Butler refused to purchase Nelson's songs, including ’Mr. Record Man’, giving him instead a $50 loan to rent an apartment and a 6 night job singing in the club. After moving to Nashville in 1960 and establishing himself as a songwriting great and then being signed by Liberty Records, his take on ’Mr. Record Man‘ was one of his first notable performances, appearing on his 1962 debut album “… And Then I Wrote” -
“… Don't forget me / take a good look at someone who's lost everything he can lose /
And then touch me / and you'll know how you'd feel with the blues …”


Willie’s first marriage to Martha Matthews from 1952 ended in divorce in 1962. The couple had 3 children. The marriage was marked by violence, with Matthews assaulting Nelson several times, including one incident when she sewed him up in bedsheets and beat him with a broomstick. In 1963 Shirley Collie and Nelson were married in Las Vegas. He then worked on the west coast offices of Pamper Records, in Los Angeles. Since the job did not allow him the time to play music of his own, he left it and returned to Tennessee, bought a ranch at Ridgetop, 32 km’s outside of Nashville.

Now a Christmas standard, originally a hit for Roy Orbison in 1963, ‘Pretty Paper’ was inspired by a crippled vendor outside a Fort Worth department store, being ignored by busy Christmas shoppers but noticed by Nelson. An amputee with no legs who peddled paper and pencils for a living, Nelson suddenly recalled the man a few months before Christmas, and put the memory to music - “He had a way of crying out those words – ‘Pretty paper! Pretty paper! – that broke my heart …” Nelson wrote in his autobiography It’s a Long Story. Nelson recorded the song himself, produced by Chet Atkins, in 1964, and then again as the title track for his 1979 Christmas album. But, at age 82, Willie gave the ultimate, emotional rendition of this song that cuts through all the Christmas tinsel to its true meaning. Stripped of the Orbison sheen, Nelson made it a sweet and simple Southern waltz, anchored by some of his most aching, pristine vocals - his tender vibrato as he sings the word “ribbons” is enough to warm even the most calloused hearts -
“… Should you stop? Better not, much too busy / You're in a hurry, my how time flies /
And in the distance the ringing of laughter / And in the midst of the laughter he cries …”


After moving to a new home in Texas in 1970 (more on that below), Willie was called by RCA about his upcoming scheduled recording sessions. At the time, Nelson had not written any new material. He temporarily returned to Nashville, where he wrote new songs to use with others from his old repertoire. These new concept songs were recorded at the RCA studio in Nashville in just 2 days for his new album “Yesterday’s Wine”.

Dedicated to his long time drummer and best friend, Paul English, ‘Me and Paul’ is a road-chugger about the foibles of touring life, the poisons of Nashville’s Music Row and how everything is better with a partner in crime. First appearing on 1971’s “Yesterday’s Wine” album and then as the title track of 1985’s “Me & Paul” album, it’s a flipside to the highway glory of ‘On the Road Again‘, delving into the mischief and danger that lingers from stop to stop. “… I guess Nashville was the roughest …” he sings to a classic honky-tonk stomp and forecasting his own future - while he name drops Kitty Wells (posts # 238-239) and Charley Pride (posts # 510-513). Nelson nearly left music altogether after ‘Yesterday’s Wine’ failed to resonate (just like yesterday’s wine in real life), but the fact he defiantly revived ‘Me and Paul‘ in 1985 shows that, ultimately, the only critic that mattered was himself -
“… Almost busted in Laredo / But for reasons that I'd rather not disclose /
But if you're stayin' in a motel there and leave / Just don't leave nothin' in your clothes …” -

Both the song ‘Me and Paul’ and the album that contains it - “Yesterday's Wine” - can be seen as the first glimpse of the outlaw Willie Nelson, more skeletal and outside the restrictions of Nashville - one of which was that they wouldn't let him record with his own musicians, like the Paul of the title. It was one of the first concept albums in Country music, the story of the "Imperfect Man", from the moment he is born to the day of his death. Although the album was a flop, which even led a frustrated Nelson to temporarily retire from music while still contracted to RCA, it was the one that began the magnificent run of conceptual works that would be the peak of his career - “Shotgun Willie”, “Phases And Stages” and “Red Headed Stranger”.

’Family Bible‘ is one of Willie's earliest compositions. Penned in 1957, it was inspired by scenes of Willie's grandmother singing ’Rock of Ages‘ and reading from the Bible after supper. As a young songwriter moving to Houston in 1958, still struggling to support his family (Willie spent money as soon as he got any - including having a good time and losing at poker), Willie sold the song to guitarist Paul Buskirk, who enlisted singer Claude Gray to record Nelson's original songs (including ’Family Bible’ and ’Night Life’). Gray's version of ’Family Bible’, released in 1960, reached #7, Gray’s biggest ever hit. The single's success emboldered Willie to move to Nashville, where he established his reputation as a songwriter. Willie recorded his own version of ’Family Bible’ for the first time on his 1971 album, “Yesterday's Wine“ and has featured the song as a staple in his live performances.

The song’s lyrics, celebrate the old Southern tradition of maintaining a family Bible. It was never a big hit for Nelson but remained close to his heart, becoming a concert mainstay and inspiring a 1980 gospel album of the same name. In time, it has become a gospel music standard. Willie’s performance of the song, opposite Johnny Cash providing the backup vocal, during a 1998 VH1 Storytellers, is particularly moving, but never preachy -


A turning point in Willie’s life came when his house in Ridgetop burned down in 1970. He made sure to save his guitar - and the kilo of weed inside - from the burning house. Willie took the fire as a sign that it was time to make a major change in his life. His recordings over the past 6 years, to which his RCA producers had added Nashville Sound lush strings and backing singers, despite Willie’s questioning this, had reached only mid-chart positions. He lost the money from his song-writing royalties by financing unsuccessful concert tours that were generally unprofitable. In addition to problems with his music career, Nelson had problems in his personal life, having divorced his second wife, Shirley Collie, and now on top of all that, his Tennessee ranch had been destroyed by a fire. Willie saw the fire as a sign that his time in Tennessee was up. He took the then almost unprecedented decision to quit his secure tenure at the Grand Ole Opry, leave Nashville and return back to Texas.

As it turned out, this decision to quit the country music capital of Nashville was the best decision Willie ever made - and the start of Texas coming into its own as a serious alternative to Nashville - more on this tomorrow, as Willie starts on his own journey to becoming a pioneer of the outlaw movement.

 

[Professor Knowall]

Nelson eventually found himself tiring of the restrictions placed on him in Nasville and longing for a place where he could be himself, later writing - “I’d go back to Texas and play all those beer joints where I grew up and wouldn’t have to change a thing. They all liked what I did. So I knew that what I was doing, I could do it forever – whether I pleased everybody in Nashville, or not”. After Willie moved back home to Texas, in 1972 he started letting his hair and his beard grow long and wrote and sang just the way he wanted.

Willie was drawn to Austin - a city very different from the larger Texan metro giants of Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston or any other place in Texas - and still is. In the early 1970s, this college town and government capital in central Texas, full of tens of thousands of students and loads of government workers, was a unique mix of hippies, rednecks, students, and professional people. Compared with Nashville, it was a bastion of artistic freedom. The music scene was conducive to creativity and experimentation, where a band could get away with mixing rock, country (including Western swing, Cajun and western) blues and any other genre they wanted to play, and the band members could grow their hair long, wear old blue jeans, and get wild. They tended to drink a lot of beer, smoke a lot of pot, and trip out on some psychedelic drugs and enjoy lots of sex.

Willie Nelson was a key, founding figure of this special and unique time and place in American musical history. Other important members of the early-70s Austin musical scene included Jerry Jeff Walker, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Ray Benson, Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, and Doug Sahm. A major focus of this scene was a concert hall and beer garden known as the Armadillo World Headquarters. Willie and his Family band were very frequent players there. This is when Willie started to grow his hair long. Willie found freedom to be himself as he achieved his musical liberty. His band members were also uniquely expressive individuals. Drummer Paul “The Devil” English, with his black goatee, performed while wearing a black cape with red lining. Bass player Bee Spears sometimes wore a train engineer cap and Indian moccasins. Harmonica player Mickey Raphael sported a bushy black Afro-style hairdo. Guitarist Jody Payne had long blonde hair and beard. Willie’s sister, Bobbie, wore a big black cowboy hat.

Word about this musical and cultural revolution quickly spread throughout central Texas - before breaking out to the rest of the country. The most important early milestone of this revolution was the Dripping Springs Reunion concert, a large Woodstock-style event held on a piece of Texas ranchland in March 1972. Along with Willie, other performers included greats Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Roger Miller, Buck Owens, Charlie Rich, Bill Monroe, Loretta Lynn and Dottie West. It was a mix of traditional country and what was beginning to be called “progressive” country. Another massive Dripping Springs event was held on July 4, 1973, marking the beginning of Willie’s annual Fourth of July picnics.

But crucially, Willie built a growing following of enthusiastic young fans in the early and mid-1970s with a series of albums in which he had finally recorded music in his own distinctive style. The first of these albums, recorded at Atlantic Studios in New York City (which had never recorded country music before), was ”Shotgun Willie” in 1973. This album was unlike anything ever heard before in country music. It consisted mostly of simple, laid-back arrangements of original Willie songs. Some had highly personalized themes, such as “Shotgun Willie” (about himself sitting “around in his underwear, biting on a bullet and pulling out all his hair”) and “Devil In a Sleepin’ Bag” (about his drummer, Paul English complaining that “traveling on the road is such a drag”). There were also tunes from Leon Russell and Western swing king, Bob Wills.

Willie followed that up with “Phases and Stages” in 1974, which was even more unusual. Willie’s next album, “Red Headed Stranger” may be his great masterpiece, but “Phases And Stages”, is almost on the same level. Another concept album, in this case about a divorce, with the first part taking the woman's point of view and the second that of the man, Nelson originally wrote ’Bloody Mary Morning‘ in 1970 to reflect his worries about parenting. The bleary-eyed hangover of ‘Bloody Mary Morning‘ was the morning-after moment of clarity that Nelson needed at a pivotal time in his career. His marriage in shambles, his contract with RCA Records going nowhere, and all signs pointing him back to Texas, the song’s autobiographical statement of purpose didn’t really register when it first appeared on 1970’s “Both Sides Now” album. But Nelson didn’t give up on it, and when he played it at a party 2 years later, it caught the ear of Atlantic’s Jerry Wexler. The rest was history. When it was reworked for his 1974 album ‘Phases and Stages’, the song took on a whole new meaning -this time as a heartbreaking rambler about a jilted man left by his lover. The song’s goose-chasing banjo gave the soon-to-be Red Headed Stranger a crucial hit and helped establish the footloose spirit that’s been at the core of Willie’s work ever since -


‘I Still Can't Believe You're Gone’ pertains to the second part of the “Phases And Stages” album and is one of Willie’s most devastating songs, dealing with the tremendous impact that the departure of a loved one has on a person - Nelson had not composed it specifically for the album, although it fits perfectly in it, but he did so after the suicide of his drummer and best friend Paul English's wife -


Following the success of his recordings with Atlantic Records, coupled with the negotiating skills of his new manager, Neil Reshen (who was introduced to Willie by Waylon Jennings, as outlined in post # 775, and also negotiated Waylon’s contract for artistic freedom) Nelson signed a contract with Columbia Records, the label giving him total creative control over his works. Even as Willie’s stardom in Austin was growing, his national audience had been diminishing and his new label was worried. An unfazed Nelson responded to all of this concern by releasing a stark, strange concept album, “Red Headed Stranger”, about a fugitive - the red-haired stranger of the title - who has killed his wife and her lover. The concept for the album was inspired by the ’Tale of the Red Headed Stranger’, a song Nelson used to play back in the late 1950’s on his radio program in Fort Worth. He decided to record the album not in Nashville, but at a low cost studio in suburban Dallas.

The songs featured sparse arrangements, largely limited to Nelson's guitar, piano, and drums. It had all the production techniques of a demo - and sounded like it, imperfections and all, flying in the face of all the trends over the last 15 years. Nelson presented the finished material to Columbia executives, who were dubious about releasing an album that they at first thought was a demo. However, Nelson had creative control, so no further production was added. The execs were certain the album would be a total flop and Willie would come to his senses. Instead, the album broke records for a country album and is now regarded as one of the greatest, if not the greatest (and most successful) country albums of all time.

“Time Of The Preacher” was the backbone of “Red Headed Stranger”. Despite being an album with a story, “Time Of The Preacher” is one of the few original songs on the album and appears several times in the development of the album. It is also the song that kicks off the album and the one that sets the tone for what is to come. It has an austere production - little more than Nelson's thrilling vocals accompanied by Trigger, until his regular bandmates come in - Paul English on drums, his sister Bobbie on piano and Mickey Raphael on harmonica. For once in a Nelson song the heartbroken man doesn't stay drinking and talking to the lonely walls, this time he saddles up his pony and ends the lives of his wife and her lover - "It was the time of the preacher in the year of '01 / Now the lesson is over and the killing's begun" -


Willie Nelson is one of the most important songwriters in the history of country music, so it is a little strange that one of the biggest hits of his career, and the song that definitely made him a star, was actually a cover. When Nelson recorded his version of this Fred Rose classic in 1975, he hadn’t scored a Top 10 for 13 years. ‘Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain‘ was the album’s centrepiece. But what Nelson did with this classic by the great song-writer Fred Rose was nothing less than a full-fledged appropriation, making it the sentimental heart of his best album - a sad, bare-boned ballad released during an era of string-heavy schmaltz, on, without doubt, one of the greatest albums in country music history, re-stripping the style and bringing it to a new audience. The way he sings it is dark and desolate, but Willie still gives it a hint of hope -

The song was not only Willie’s first # 1 hit, 19 years after his first single was released in 1956, but also crossed over onto the pop charts and earned Willie his first Grammy Award, for Best Vocal Performance in 1975.

Waylon Jennings and Willie had been friends since Willie, while passing through on the way to LA. in the early 1960’s, attended one of Waylon’s acclaimed performances at T.J’s Nightclub in Scottsdale, Arizona - and he later warned Waylon about leaving this gig and going to Nashville (see post # 774). By 1975, they had became known as the fathers of the outlaw country music movement - though their respective sound and approached were very different from each other, with Waylon’s rock-band like production contrasting with Willie’s sparseness, concentrating on the melody and lyrics. That reputation was solidified with the release of the album “Wanted! The Outlaws” by RCA in 1976 (see post # 779 above). The album also included Jessi Colter (Waylon’s wife) and Tompall Glaser and despite containing little original material, was a huge marketing success.

Two good-timing men if there ever were, Waylon and Willie had perfect timing when they dropped “Good Hearted Woman” in 1976. The duet, released as a single from the album, became an instant country classic, going all the way to # 1. The “live duet” was an illusion, however, as Jennings had already released the song in 1972 (see post # 775), but overdubbing Nelson’s vocals and fake crowd noise gave ‘Good Hearted Woman‘ extra pep, so it was added to “Wanted: The Outlaws!“. The song actually dated back 7 years prior when Jennings came up with it over a poker game, inspired by an ad for Ike & Tina Turner, with Nelson’s then-wife Connie Koepke writing down the lyrics as they played. (The Turners, ironically, split up for good after a fight in Dallas in 1976) The new version went on to top the charts and even cross over to the Pop Top 40, while “Wanted“ became country’s first platinum album – pushing Waylon and Willie and the boys once and for all into the mainstream -
“A long time forgotten are dreams that just fell by the way / The good life he promised, ain't what she's living today …”

The names Waylon and Willie were further linked together (sometimes so much that they were referred to as “Waylie”) by their duet ‘Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)‘ on Waylon’s 1977 album “Ol’ Waylon” and by their 1978 duet album “Waylon and Willie” (see post # 779 above).

Nashville was shocked to discover that the guy who they brushed off as a weird-singing songwriter for all those years was suddenly, at age 42 in 1975, a big-time singing star, with a huge youth following - and based in Texas. In 1976, Willie surprised them again by releasing an album of gospel songs called “The Troublemaker’, scoring a hit song with ‘Uncloudy Day’. Nelson would follow with albums that revealed his astonishing versatility and wide-ranging interest - as will be seen tomorrow, as his run of success continues unabated into the late 1970’s.

 

[Professor Knowall]

As we saw yesterday, covering Willie Nelson’s journey to artistic freedom, escaping from Asheville’s obsession with over producing his music, Willie simply believed that songs with beauty in their melody and well-written lyrics just stand on their own, without the need of unnecessary adornment. Today will see more vindication of Willie’s belief.

One of the most influential country artists was the legendary Texan Lefty Frizzell (see posts # 216-219), who introduced the vowel stretching and bending technique that added so much emotion and beauty to country music - but in this case composed a good time Texan honky tonker classic which was a # 1 hit for him way back in 1950. Willie (along with many others including Hank Snow, Merle Haggard, George Jones and Sonny Rodriguez) had idolised Lefty ever since he became a major star in 1950. Willie released ‘If You Got The Money, I’ve Got The Time’ as a single from the 1976 “The Sound In Your Mind” album and 26 years after Lefty had done so, Willie took it back all the way to # 1 in 1976 -

Other versions of this honky tonk classic include a great recording by Mose Allison in 1971 and Lefty Frizzell devotee, Merle Haggard in 2001.

We saw yesterday the close connection between Waylon and Willie, with the 1976 “Wanted … The Outlaws” album and its # 1 single ‘Good Hearted Woman’. They were further linked together on their # 1 1978 duet album “Waylon & Willie”, which included the monster hit ‘Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys‘, which reinforced the cowboy as one of the central tenets of outlaw music imagery. The cowboy symbolises freedom, courage, individualism, self-sufficiency and romance - but also isolation, loneliness and danger.

For all the hit songs that Nelson wrote for other people over the years, it’s hard to think of a song written by someone else that could be as perfectly suited for him as ‘Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys‘. The song had already charted with its author, Ed Bruce, and been covered by Chris LeDoux before Nelson and Waylon tackled it on 1978’s “Waylon & Willie” – but all other versions were relegated to footnotes once they’d touched it. The Lone Star belt buckles and smoky old pool rooms fit in perfectly with the outlaw country mystique, but it’s the delivery that sells it - you get the feeling Jennings is that dark, distant cowboy, but Nelson’s warm, airy contrast gives the song the wry, knowing wink that it needs -

‘Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys‘ won the 1978 Grammy Award for Best Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group.

Just when the music industry thought it was figuring out who Willie was, he threw them another curve ball with the 1978 album Stardust. In 1978 Willie Nelson was, at age 45 after 25 years of career, the most important country star in the USA, leading, together with his fellow Texan friend Waylon Jennings, the Outlaw movement with there recently released album (see above) having sold more than a million copies. So when that same year he decided to record, with Booker T. Jones as producer, an album of covers of old standards from the American Songbook, many (yet again) thought he was committing commercial suicide. it of course, Willie knew better - Willie had noticed young people, most of whom had not heard these songs - or even these type of songs - before, had responded very enthusiastically to them in his regular live performances in Austin. The album breathed unexpected new life into old American standards, introducing these beautiful classics to a whole new generation - and that wonderful album went platinum and ga e him 2 new #1 hits, ‘Georgia On My Mind’ and ‘Blue Skies’.

It may not quite be as iconic as Ray Charles' take in 1960 (see post # 453), but Nelson still offered enough emotion to this easygoing and soulful rendition of ‘Georgia on My Mind‘ to be regarded as one of his very best covers. It’s a testament to both men’s skills as master interpreters that they could take ‘Georgia on My Mind‘ – already the official song of Georgia – and make it their own. Willie took his cue from fellow Atlantic Records man Charles (himself a Georgia native), giving his version a decidedly soulful reading on 1978’s “Stardust“, itself a sign of how far to the edge of the country genre he was willing to reach at the height of his outlaw notoriety. His brittle, plaintive performance is one the finest he ever put to tape, a masterstroke of emotional understatement -

Willie wound up winning another Grammy (back when they were rare and highly coveted) for Best Male Vocal Performance for his masterful rendition.

’Blue Skies‘ exemplifies Willie’s knack for taking a tune from the Great American Songbook and transforming it into something that's all his own. The song was written in 1926, as a last-minute addition to the musical The Jazz Singer. Willie’s version of the Irving Berlin classic is a true marvel, with his Family (his backing band) in excellent form, although the real stars are Nelson himself, who once again proves he is as good a performer as he is a composer, and Trigger, his classic Martin N-20 with nylon strings, with which he plays a splendid solo in which he brings out the great Django Reinhardt lover that he was. Nelson's version, with it’s subtly slowing tempo gives the standard a bluesy, dreamy, ethereal quality -


This iconic ‘Whiskey River‘, which has doubled as Willie’s concert-opening song since time immemorial, was actually written and recorded by Johnny Bush. Nelson put his stamp on this heartache-drenched in 1973’s “Shotgun Willie”, empowering it with a grooving bass line and giant vocal harmonies over which he languidly laments a high-proof moonshine river he hopes never runs dry. But his more faster flowing, rollicking live rendition, worthy of any country road trip, wasn’t released as a single until 1978, when Nelson included it on that year’s live album ‘Willie and Family Live’. It promptly became another # 1 hit. Since then, it’s been synonymous with Nelson, becoming one his go-to opening songat live shows. It’s also the opening track for his live 2004 album “Live at Billy Bob's, Texas”. Willie still hawks his own Old Whiskey River bourbon - which last time I looked was $3,000 a bottle, so I don’t have a whole lot of it -

Nelson performed the song during the pilot episode of the long-running music TV series Austin City Limits - marking the first song to be performed on the program.

In 1979, despite living in Texas and having been scarred by his dozen or so years living in Nashville, Willie, showing some uncommonly good business sense and still willing to recognise the central importance of Nashville to country music, opened the Willie Nelson and Family General Store in Nashville. Forty three years later that store is still open and has expanded to include the Willie Nelson and Friends Museum which pays homage to Willie Nelson and also many of the greats who made country music what it is today. Make sure you drop in if you ever find yourself in Nashville.

As for Willie, as we leave the 1970’s and go into the 1980’s his career is still riding high (in more ways than one). More tomorrow.

 

[Professor Knowall]

In 1979, Willie, finally accepted by the Nashville establishment due to his overwhelming success, received country music’s highest honor when he was selected as “Entertainer of the Year” by the CMA. That same year, besides the opening of his Willie Nelson and Family General Store in Nashville, Willie used his financial success to purchase property near Lake Travis in Austin. There, he converted Pedernales Country Club into the Pedernales Recording Studio. The first album he recorded there was “Tougher Than Leather” in 1983, a concept album telling a cowboy saga similar to that of “Red Headed Stranger”.

In yet another accomplishment of 1979, Willie branched out his career into movie acting. He had a relatively small role in The Electric Horseman, starring Robert Redford. But he still managed to steal the show with the line - “I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna get me a bottle of tequila, find me one of them keno girls that can suck the chrome off a trailer hitch and just kind of kick back.” Unlike Waylon, Willie was obviously a naturally gifted actor. Written by songwriter Sharon Vaughn, ‘My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys‘ was first cut by Waylon for “Wanted! The Outlaws”, but it was Willie who rode it to # 1 with his 1980 version recorded for the Robert Redford movie The Electric Horseman.

A reflection on the dream of being a cowboy set directly against a reality that many can relate to, ‘My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys‘ became Waylon and Willie’s 3rd collaborative # 1 hit. Waylon’s singer son, Shooter Jennings, once lamented in song that “… your heroes turn out to be assholes…” but he could have easily used “cowboys” as a synonym for the slur. While Willie never overtly equates cowboys with selfish jerks in this bittersweet ballad, it’s easy to read between the lines. The lyrics romanticize “… the cowboy ways …” but in the end, the song is really about squandered chances and coming to terms with a life lived without responsibility - “… I learned all the rules of a modern-day drifter / Don't you hold on to nothin' too long / Just take what you need from the ladies and leave them / with the words of a sad country song …”. It’s more mournful admonition than boast, and by the time he see his creative prime in the rearview – the result of “… picking up hookers, instead of my pen …” – you can feel the regret consume the singer -
“… I let the words of my youth fade away / Old worn-out saddles, and old worn-out memories / With no one and no place to stay …”


The Electric Horseman wasn't the only movie for which Nelson wrote songs. At age 47 and looking older still, but still at the peak of his popularity in 1980, Nelson starred in a romantic musical drama Honeysuckle Rose, about a struggling outlaw country singer who didn’t quite make it to the top. It was elevated above guilty pleasure status by its live-concert inspired soundtrack. Not only did Willie play the lead character, Buck Bonham - a version of himself, he wrote the movie’s score. Co-stars Amy Irving and Dyan Cannon, along with Emmylou Harris, Hank Cochran, Jeannie Seely and fiddler Johnny Gimble, joined Willie and his Family band on the LP, which included Nelson written songs like ‘Pick Up the Tempo‘ and ‘Heaven and Hell’.

There’s something delightfully crude about the fact that Willie wrote one of his biggest and signature hit on the back of an airplane vomit bag. Maybe Nelson's most iconic song, ‘On the Road Again‘ was conceived on the spur of the moment in the middle of a flight, as the theme song for Honeysuckle Rose. It became Willie’s 6th # 1 (or 10th if including his collaborative # 1 hits with Waylon). The film may have been an alternate reality to his own life, but the song was quintessential to the real thing, a jaunty, singalong travelogue that appeals to most anyone who loves nothing more than hitting the road with a band of friends, “… Goin' places that I've never been / Seein' things that I may never see again …”. With its rollicking train beat and enduring tale of the joys of just getting away to new places, no song celebrates Willie’s band-of-gypsies love affair with hitting the road and making music with his friends more simply than this one -

The catchy tune garnered Willie yet another Grammy Award - this time for Best Song of 1980.

The road anthem ‘On the Road Again’ became the ubiquitous classic, but it’s the artery-slicing heartbreaking ‘Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground‘, yet another # 1 in 1981, that deserves to be an American standard. One of the most emotional songs of Willie’s career, composed for the Honeysuckle Roses soundtrack, it’s thought by many to be dedicated to his ex-wife Connie Koepke. Later covered by both Bob Dylan and Alison Krauss, it’s a bittersweet rumination on deep love and even deeper loss, with uncluttered production and one of Nelson’s most vulnerable, compelling vocal performances of all time. The heartbreaking love song remains a staple in country music today. This live version is from Tokyo in 1985. Again the way Nelson caresses each word is sublime, as well as delivering yet another wonderful solo with Trigger -


Willie’s early cinematic successes led to many more movie offers. He appeared with James Caan in Thief (1981), with Gary Busey in Barbarosa (1982), with John Savage in Coming Out of the Ice (1982), and with his friend Kris Kristofferson in Songwriter (1984). The latter movie also generated a duet album. He had the lead role in Red Headed Stranger, a 1986 movie version of the album, with Morgan Fairchild. That same year, he appeared in a TV remake of the John Wayne western Stagecoach, along with fellow Highwaymen Kristofferson, Jennings, and Johnny Cash. That country supergroup had released its debut album, “Highwayman”, in 1985.

Although it's one of the songs Willie is best known for, ’Always On My Mind‘ wasn’t a tune he'd written himself, but was first recorded by Gwen Macrae in 1972. While Elvis Presley and Brenda Lee released their versions that same year, it is Nelson's rendition that broke records and went platinum a decade later. Willie first heard ‘Always on My Mind’ during the recording sessions for ‘Pancho & Lefty’, when studio guitarist Johnny Christopher – one of the song’s three co-writers – pitched it to Merle Haggard. When Haggard passed on the tune, Nelson quickly jumped on it, re-entering the studio as soon as ‘Pancho & Lefty‘ was done to cut another solo album. ‘Always on My Mind‘ became the record’s title tune, dressed up with sweeping strings and swelling brass by producer Chips Moman. Elvis Presley’s 1972 recording may have popularized the song, but it was Nelson’s version – sung in a warbling, guilty-as-charged voice that cuts through Moman’s thick arrangement – that not only topped the country charts but crossed over, going to # 5 on the pop chart and # 2 on the AC charts. But for all that, this live version minus the sweeping strings and swelling brass is even better -

Nelson's version of ‘Always On My Mind’ resulted in 3 Grammy Awards in 1983 - songwriters Christopher, James, and Carson won Song of the Year and Best Country Song; in addition, Nelson again won for Best Male Vocal Performance. This version also won CMA awards in consecutive years - 1982 Song of the Year and 1983 Song of the Year for songwriters Christopher, James and Carson; 1982 Single of the Year for Nelson; and contributed to Nelson winning 1982 Album of the Year for the album “Always on My Mind”.

Nelson offers such a personal take on the heartbreak within the lyrics of ‘The Last Thing I Needed The First Thing This Morning’ that one wouldn't be remiss to assume he'd written them himself. Instead, Gary P. Nunn wrote it with Donna Farar. It “only” reached # 2 in the U.S., but it was Willie’s 9th solo # 1 in Canada, where he was every bit as popular as the U.S.. More recently, Chris Stapleton offered his soulful rendition on From A Room, Vol 1.


Music has always been Willie’s main love. He spent the 1980’s and 1990’s exploring many different musical genres, but delivering . Like a singing version of Captain Kirk, Willie has had the courage to boldly go where no country-music man has gone before. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from 1981 was another album of 1940s-era American songbook standards. Willie’s old friend Freddie Powers joined him on such classics as ‘Exactly Like You‘ and ‘I’m Gonna Sit Right Down (And Write Myself a Letter)’. The 1983 “Tougher Than Leather” was Willie’s first album of original songs in several years, serving as a reminder of what a great writer he is. It included new cowboy songs from Willie’s unique perspective, such as ‘Little Old Fashioned Karma‘, ‘Nobody Slides, My Friend‘ and ‘I Am the Forest”. He was no slave to any style and pretty much did anything he wanted. He explored the hard-core country, western swing, gospel, folk, jazz, and many more. He also collaborated with many great music artists and covered many different songs that definitely made an impact.

 

[Professor Knowall]

Nelson uses a variety of music styles to create his own distinctive blend of country music, a hybrid of jazz, pop, blues, rock and folk. His "unique sound", which uses a "relaxed, behind-the-beat singing style and gut-string guitar" and his "nasal“ voice and jazzy, off-center phrasing has been responsible for his wide appeal, and made him a vital icon in country music, influencing the new country, new traditionalist, and alternative country movements of the 1980’s and 1990’s.

‘Pancho & Lefty’ is probably legendary songwriter, Townes Van Zandt's, most well-known song (not his best writing, but best melody IMO, his most appealing to the mainstream) and several dutiful interpreters have covered it over the years. But it's Willie and Merle Haggard's rendition for their collaborative “Pancho & Lefty” album that stands best alongside Van Zandt's as a stunning take (see post # 553) on this classic outlaw ballad. Townes tale of Mexican banditry, brotherhood and betrayal was more than a decade old when Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard cut their own version in 1983, turning the song into a duet. Their timing couldn’t have been better. Outlaw country still ruled the roost, and “Pancho and Lefty” was the ultimate outlaw tale, positioning its two characters as sympathetic anti-heroes who were loved by mothers and hated by federales. Nelson sent a staggering 16 albums into the Top 10 during the 1980s, but none left as deep an impression as Pancho & Lefty, whose title track proved that the 50 year-old singer could shoot as straight as the younger guns -

Townes Van Zandt also appears several times in the video.

It’s been too long since we‘ve had a train song i this series - despite the fact Waylon recorded a whole album of train songs in 1972, I couldn’t squeeze any of them into his featured song. But Willie now sets that right with a # 1 hit from 1984. ‘City of New Orleans‘ is a folk song written by Steve Goodman, describing a train ride from Chicago to New Orleans via the Illinois Central Railroad in bittersweet and nostalgic terms - for the train is about to be scrapped. Goodman got the idea while traveling on the actual train for a visit to his wife's family. He performed the song for Arlo Guthrie in a Chicago bar. Guthrie added it to his repertoire and it was a hit for him in 1972 and is now closely associated with him, although Goodman performed it until his death in 1984. The song was also covered by, John Denver, Johnny Cash, Judy Collins, Jerry Reed, Chet Atkins, Hank Snow, and others, but it was Willie’s version that won Steve Goodman a posthumous Grammy Award for Best Country Song in 1984, which Willie included on his 1984 album of the same name. It reached #1 in both the U.S. and Canada -


After Nelson released his # 1 take on Ray Charles’ ’Georgia on My Mind from his acclaimed 1978 ‘Stardust‘ album, the 2 musical masters came together in 1985 to perform a duet ‘Seven Spanish Angels’. The two artists crossover into each other's lanes magnificently on the track, culminating into a ballad that is just as much country as it is gospel and soul -


Nelson has always been a master at meditating on memory, and the capability of our brains to know when to move on and when to linger. “Forgiving You Was Easy,” from 1985’s ”Me & Paul” album finds Nelson applying this insight to the nuances of relationships, and how complex our hearts can be when scorned by the one we love - “I could probably apply it to a dozen situations in my life”, Nelson has said about the tender, Tejano-tinged ballad that went to # 1 in 1985 – on the same day, in fact, that Live Aid aired worldwide and raised millions for the famine across Africa. The synchronicity birthed his own idea- Farm Aid, which held its first concert that September in Chicago (and is still going strong - Willie, who is still on the Farm Aid board, performed at the last Farmaid festival, held at Raleigh, North Carolina less than 2 months ago at age 89). Naturally, Nelson played ‘Forgiving You Was Easy‘ during his set, and he hasn’t forgotten the farmers ever since#


Written by Beth Nielsen Chapman, this # 1 hit from 1989 tells Nelson's own outlaw saga pretty well, which is perhaps why it also happens to be one of the singer's breeziest performances on record. Set to a cool Cajun-tinged groove, the tune finds a wistful Nelson resigned to his fate. With a personal life that has included 4 marriages, tax troubles and "high times" that have led to occasional brushes with the law, there's obviously nothing he can, or would, do about all of it now -


As mentioned just above, challenges of the family farmer have always been of great concern to Willie. In 1985, Willie - along with Neil Young and John Mellencamp - organized the first Farm Aid concert to raise both awareness and funds to help family farmers. Dave Matthews joined in 2001. As of 2022, the annual musical event, last held in September, and the Farm Aid organization have raised more than $60 million. Willie has already announced he will perform in next years festival at age 90.

Willie has also long promoted an alternative, cleaner-burning fuel known as biodiesel. For a few years, he marketed his own brand of biodiesel in Texas for truckies called BioWillie, made with soybean oil - but unfortunately cheap petrol at the time saw this venture go belly-up, but he now sells biodiesel in Hawaii, where he has a house. Willie is also an advocate for the humane treatment of horses and farm animals. And he has never forgotten his hometown of Abbott, Texas. He bought and continues to support the town’s church and grocery store, which were both in danger of failing.

The end of the 1980’s sees an end to Willie’s hit making, 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 U.S. Tax Department (aka the IRS) in the late 1980‘s. Though his hit singles dried up by the early 1990’s as country radio stations dropped him from their playlists. Willie, as he entered into his 60’s, kept performing and recording at a prodigious pace, both on his own and in a variety of collaborative settings, including the country supergroup the Highwaymen. So there’s still more to come on the still endlessly incredible career of Willie Nelson (which I can only cover in part), though due to other commitments, it may take a couple of days before I return with more.

 

[Professor Knowall]

So I’m back, continuing with Willie Nelson’s legendary and never ending career. Willie has been married 4 times. The first was to Martha Matthews in 1953 when he was 18 years old; she was 16 (the average Southern marriage ages at that time). From the start, they struggled to make ends meet and soon began fighting regularly, with Nelson later recalling - "She was a full-blooded Cherokee and every night with us was like Custer's last stand. We'd live in one place a month, then pack up and move”. The marriage ended in 1962 after Nelson moved to Nashville and found some success . From 1963 to 1971, Willie‘s second marriage was to singer Shirley Collie, who had played with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. The couple divorced in 1971 after Collie found a bill from the maternity ward of a Houston hospital charged to Nelson and Connie Koepke for the birth of Paula Nelson. Nelson duly married Koepke, who is mentioned in some of Willie’s 1970’s songs, the same year, and they had another daughter, Amy before divorcing in 1988.

Paula is now a country singer-songwriter, as well as a radio disc jockey. Amy performs in the acoustic duo Folk Uke with Cathy Guthrie, daughter of Arlo Guthri, who, as outlined the other day, first popularised the song ‘City Of New Orleans’. Following a divorce in 1988, in 1991 he married his fourth (and probably his final) wife, Annie D'Angelo, a makeup artist he had met while filming one of his movies, in and they are still together - Willie having finally outgrown his wicked womanising ways They have 2 sons, Lukas Autry and Jacob Micah.

Discussing his marriages, and speaking for so many musicians and others who have to spend time on the road, away from home and meeting new people along the way, Nelson once said - "It's not easy being married to a man like me. It's asking a lot to let your husband run around the world, flirting with pretty girls who flirt back. That's a hard one. It's pretty obvious that entertainers marry and remarry. ... more than anyone else. I think it's because they're away from home so much and the temptations are so great…". It’s been a familiar theme on this history series.

The year 1991 began and ended with two shattering personal crises. At the end of 1990, the IRS (aka Tax Office) seized Nelson's properties and possessions to settle a tax debt totaled at $32 million after the agency had disallowed various tax shelters his accountant had set up. The figure was later reduced to $16.7 million, but in January 1991, the IRS held what Newsweek termed a "humiliating" auction of all of Nelson's possessions. Friends and supporters stepped in and tendered bids, purchasing his property and allowing him to remain on the premises until he could buy it back. One friend bought his home, another his Pedernales Country Club and Recording Studio. To help pay his bill, he released the double album “The IRS Tapes: Who'll Buy My Memories?”. The album was marketed through TV ads and all the profits were directed to the IRS to help pay off the seemingly insurmountable debt, and he also toured heavily.

Then, on Christmas Day of 1991 Nelson suffered a devastating personal blow when his then only son Billy committed suicide by hanging, having suffered alcoholism, with a history of severe depression, not employed but living off an allowance from Willie. "I've never experienced anything so devastating in my life." Nelson later admitted. But in a silver lining to this tragedy, Billy’s daughter, Raelyn Nelson, now has her own band and creates music described as country punk (as developed by Hank III). Raelyn and Willie have shared the stage at several of Willie’s legendary 4th of July picnics. He even sang harmony on one of Raelyn’s earliest recordings, ‘Moon Song’.

By 1993, Nelson, at age 60, had paid off about half his IRS debt and had agreed to a schedule to pay off the rest. That year he released a daring new album, “Across the Borderline” to widespread critical acclaim and praise. Rolling Stone reported the ambitious album, produced by pop producer Don Was, "seasons the singer's own brand of austere, hard-chugging country swing with echoes of everything from English art rock to Paul Simon's South African-flavored folk rock." Time referred to Nelson's album as “a singular achievement that will fix him for good right where he belongs, among the best of American music“. Duets with Sinead O'Connor, Bonnie Raitt, Bob Dylan, David Crosby and Kris Kristofferson, as well as songs by Dylan, Paul Simon, and Lyle Lovett ensured the record's cross genre success, becoming his first solo album to appear in the pop charts since 1985.

Nelson continued to work steadily, releasing at least one album a year and touring constantly. In 1993, he was inducted into the Country Music HoF, but by that time, he had already become a living legend for country music fans across the world. Releasing “Spirit” album in 1996, he resurfaced 2 years later in 1998 with the critically acclaimed “Teatro”. The recording sessions were held in an old movie theater in Oxnard, California and features backing vocals by Emmylou Harris, as well as regular Nelson harmonicist Mickey Raphael and Nelson's sister, Bobbie Nelson, on piano. The majority of the songs are composed by Nelson, and most are re-recordings of songs he wrote and first recorded in the 1960’s such as ‘My Own Peculiar Way’ from 1964. Like many of his earlier compositions from a half century ago, Willie has continued to reinterpret and rearrange throughout his career; a song that speaks to the mysteries of an abiding - and experienced - heart -


‘I Never Cared For You’ was also released in 1964 (and there’s a great YouTube clip of Willie performing this song live back then), the only single that Nelson released on Monument Records. The complex nature of the lyrics at the time didn’t favour its reception on the Country market. Though the single flopped on the national market, it became a local hit in Texas, enjoying major success in Houston. The song became a recurrent track in Nelson's albums, releasing new versions with his albums “Me & Paul”, “A Horse Called Music”, “Teatro” and “December Day”. But it’s the 1998 performance on “Teatro” with Willie’s guitar solo on Trigger introducing the song, backed by Emmylou Harris. Striking, beautiful and affecting, it has became the favourite version. The song‘s hook is the twisted lyrics, so that every statement made is untrue. The first 2.25m of the video treats you to Willie doing a guitar solo on Trigger, in the style of jazz guitar legend, Django Reinhardt, whom Willie, unlike every other country guitarist with the singular exception of the great Chet Atkins (posts # 353-356) who also idolised Django, based his guitar technique on -


“You Don't Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker” is Willie’s 54th studio album, released in 2006. All tracks on the album were written by country songwriting great, Cindy Walker. The album was released just 9 days before Walker's death. ‘You Don’t Know Me’ is a beautiful but sad song of thrawted, unrequited love, all due to a choking shyness, written by Cindy Walker and the great country vocalist, Eddy Arnold (see posts # 189-191) in 1955. 'You Don't Know Me' was released as a single by Arnold in 1956, but by far and away the best-selling version is by Ray Charles, who took it to # 2 on the pop charts and # 1 on the country charts in 1962 (See post # 443). Willie’s version is best consumed with some fine Tennessee whiskey. Like always, this great interpreter of beautiful music brings out all the emotions contained within the melody and lyrics -


‘Just Breathe‘ was originally released by Pearl Jam in 2009, peaking at # 6 on the Alternative chart and though it only reached # 78 on the Pop chart, it was a # 1 hit in Poland, a top 10 hit in Portugal and a top 20 in the Netherlands. It was triggered by a chord from ’Tuolumne’, an instrumental from Eddie Vedder's soundtrack for the 2007 film Into the Wild. When Vedder heard about Nelson taking on one of his songs, he expressed his excitement by comparing the experience to “smoking a great joint without all the coughing or the smoke“, adding he was very honored and even referred to Nelson’s cover as the “best contribution to music so far.”

Nelson released his version of the song on the 2012 album “Heroes“ album, which includes a number of additional guest appearances, such as from Sheryl Crow and his old “outlaw” friend, Billy Joe Shaver. As an added bonus, his version of ‘Just Breathe’ featured the guest vocals of his son, Lukas Nelson, one of Willie’s 7 children and the frontman for the rock band Promise of the Real (aka POTR). The band formed back in 2008 and has been traveling the world on tour together ever since -

Willie’s version also saw a revival in Pearl Jams’s original. In 2014, 2 years after it was covered by Nelson, ’Just Breathe‘ was certified platinum in digital sales, Pearl Jam's first platinum-certified song.

OK - I can’t keep this history on Willie go any longer without featuring another thing Willie is famous for - weed! Willie, besides being a heavy tobacco smoker, had been using marijuana since at least the very early 1960’s, and probably even before he arrived in Nashville in 1961. He never took the usual uppers (sped) pills commonly used by other performers, but used weed initially to calm his nerves before performances. There is a famous true story, dating back to when Jimmy Carter was US president in 1977, of Willie, a longtime Democrat Party activist supporter, smoking a joint on the roof of the White House with one of Carter’s sons. Arrested a few times for possession of the drug - including in the Bahamas a few days before his White House smoking session.

Willie has maintained his strong views supporting marijuana legalization. And society has largely come around to his way of seeing things in recent years. He considers it a calming medicinal herb, instrumental in containing his tremendous energy. A friend once remarked - "Most people smoke weed to get high. Willie smokes to get normal”. In 2015, Willie, just like he cashed in on the success of ‘Whiskey River’ with his own Whiskey brand, began marketing his own line of cannabis products called Willie’s Reserve. I can’t say I’ve tried it. However, due to health concerns with his throat affecting his voice, Wilie finally quit smoking weed early this year

One of Willie’s more popular songs of the last decade is ‘Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die‘, also from the 2012 “Heroes” album It’s become something of a joyful anthem during Willie’s concerts. The recorded version of the song features vocal help from Snoop Dogg, Jamey Johnson and Kris Kristofferson as icing on the cake. Snoop and Willie had previously made a song and video together titled ‘My Medicine‘. Willie is having the last word on both his ear lifelong habit and the way he plans to go out - high, happy and the life (or at least the reason for) the party. In an interview a few years back, Snoop Dog said Willie is the only bloke who ever outsmoked him under the table. Anyway, here’s Willie, in his eighties, having fun at his annual 4th of July concert at Austin in 2014 (note the big Texan flag being waved in the audience) -

For all his pot smoking and long time public support for legalising marijuana, Nelson, having seen the debilitating affects other drugs have had on friends such as Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, George Jones and Johnny Paycheck etc, strictly prohibits his band members from using any other drugs, particularly cocaine, saying "If you're wired, you're fired”.

In the 20+ years up to 2012 covered in today’s instalment, the ever prolific Willie accomplished far more than what I can fit in to this potted history, so I‘ll just highlight a select few I particularly (subjectively) like. The ambitious double-disc “Last of the Breed”, a project that paired Nelson with old friends, Merle Haggard, Ray Price, and the Western Swing heritage group, Asleep at the Wheel, was released in 2007. 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 stripped-back remixes of vintage Nelson Nashville Sound releases from RCA originally recorded from 1966 to 1970 called “Naked Willie”. Appearing in 2009 was the jazz-infused “American Classic”, earning rave reviews from jazz critics and enthusiasts. And all this is just a small sample of his total output to 2012.

Tomorrow will chart Willie’s career from 2013, as the seemingly always “old man” Willie (he’s always seemed like an old man in my lifetime) enters into his eighties. He doesn’t slow up - and there’s more beautiful music from Willie to come.

 

[Professor Knowall]

Nelson kept to a rigorous touring schedule despite the fact that he turned 80 in 2013. Though he'd been recording mostly covers for well over a decade, Nelson re-engaged as a songwriter while traveling. “Band of Brothers”, from 2014, featured 9 originals, co-written with producer Buddy Cannon, among its 14 new songs. Six months later, Nelson launched a projected series of albums, given the collective name “Willie's Stash”, devoted to music especially close to his heart, with “December Day”, a low-key collaboration with his pianist sister Bobbie Nelson, in which they performed a set of old standards and lesser-known tunes from Nelson's encyclopaedic songbook.

We open today’s music in 2013 with Willie and daughter, Paula Nelson. ‘Have You Ever Seen The Rain’ was written by John Fogerty for Creedence Clearwater Revival and recorded by them in 1970. This version was recorded in 2013 by Willie Nelson with his daughter Paula on his 2013 “To All The Girls…“, an album of duets with leading female artists. Though I’m a huge John Fogarty fan, Willie’s mellow version of this song about the black dog of depression absolutely brings out the bleak essence of the song - albeit while wrapping it, with the significant contribution of his talented daughter Paula, with so much soulful beauty -


In 2015, Nelson teamed up with his old friend Merle Haggard for “Django and Jimmie’, their first collaboration in 20 years. The album title song ’Django and Jimmie‘ is a tribute to jazz guitar legend Django Reinhardt and Jimmie Rodgers (posts # 120-122), one of the foundational country music legends. They recorded live direct to disc on the first electrical sound recording system from the 1920’s. It was the last filmed performance of the 2 legends together and Merle’s last studio recording. Rolling Stone wrote - "in the final performance of Sessions, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard perform the duet 'The Only Man Wilder Than Me.' Haggard has a look of complete joy on his face throughout the session in the old-timey recording setup once used by his musical heroes“. Preceded by the single ‘It's All Going to Pot‘, referencing you know what, the album debuted at # 1 upon its release. Here we have the two old legends behaving badly, smoking pot and totally enjoying themselves as the verse they each sing take the piss out of each other (Willie’s verse has Merle making out with Willie’s hot new proverbial girlfriend) - and at the world in general. But I think Willie couldn’t resist slyly advocating the superiority of pot over alcohol and pills in the chorus -
“… All of the whiskey in Lynchburg, Tennessee / It just couldn't hit the spot / I gotta hundred dollar bill, friend /
You can keep your pills / 'Cause it's all going to pot …” -

The “Django and Jimmie“ album also features a guest appearance by Bobby Bare on the tribute song ’Missing Ol' Johnny Cash’ (post # 345), who had died 12 years prior. Ten months after the release of “Django and Jimmie“, Merle himself passed away from pneumonia on his 79th birthday in 2016. Willie recorded a tribute song to Merle ‘He Won’t Ever Be Gone’ on his acclaimed “God’s Problem Child” album in 2017 (post # 502).

Early in 2016, Nelson issued the jazz album “Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin“, which topped the jazz charts and later that year he saluted his early bandleader, inspiration and now departed friend, Ray Price, with “For the Good Times: A Tribute to Ray Price”. Nelson returned to original songs in 2017 with the album “God's Problem Child”, again co-produced by Buddy Cannon. Upon its release, “God's Problem Child” reached # 1, becoming Nelson's 16th album chart-topper, while it also entered the top 10 of the Pop chart.

Willie had lost several close friends over the previous couple of years - especially music collaborators and legends in their own right, Ray Price and Merle Haggard, and he's also been the subject of numerous death hoaxes, a subject he tackles with a grin on ’Still Not Dead‘, one of the 7 originals on the album Nelson co-wrote with Buddy Cannon. Note in the video Willie, in one of his favourite leisure activities of playing poker, jumps and does a 360 spin - at age 84! -
“… I run up and down the road making music as I go / They say my pace would kill a normal man /
But I've never been accused of being normal anyway …”


’Still Not Dead‘ provides a gateway to the rest of “God's Problem Child”, where Willie looks at the world with a blend of bemusement and melancholy suiting a road warrior who is still going strong in his eighties. His band has a relaxed gait that harks back to his classic outlaw records of the 1970’s but feels mellowed with age. Whenever Nelson looks at his twilight years, it's either with clear eyes or bemusement - he salutes his friends who have crossed over on the lovely ’Old Timer’ and admits ’It Gets Easier‘ when you get older because you can let your feelings fade, but he gets a kick that he's still around to experience it all. Willie’s vintage vocals with the weeping pedal steel backing sets the mood for this reflective song of experience -
“… I don't have to do / One damn thing / That I don't want to do / Except for missing you /And that won't go away …” -


Another from the superlative “God's Problem Child” album of 2017 is ‘A Oman’s Love’. What can I say - such a beautiful song, the lyrics are thoughtful and moving, Willie’s voice is soft and gentle while his guitar playing along with the backing of all combines to take us to a deeper place of reflection -


Having covered Willie’s pot smoking yesterday, one more aspect that adds to the legend of his remarkable life and career is Trigger, Nelson’s old, beat-up and beloved acoustic guitar, which has also featured over the past week here. There are a handful of guitars that are almost as iconic as the people that play them. Eric Clapton’s “Blackie” Strat is one, Keith Richard’s “Micawber” Tele is another. And then there’s Willie’s “Trigger.” Since 1969, this unique Martin N-20 has been Nelson’s go-to instrument. Synonymous with the musician, it’s also one of the most storied guitars in the history of popular music.

In 1969, the Baldwin Company offered Nelson one of their 800C Classical Acoustic-Electrics, complete with a “Prismatone“ pickup and amp. However, it didn’t last long. During a concert in Texas, Nelson left the guitar on the floor of the stage and it was stepped on by a drunk bloke, causing serious damage. Nelson sent the guitar to Nashville to be repaired by luthier Shot Jackson, to see if he could resuscitate it. Jackson quickly pronounced the Baldwin unrepairable, but offered Nelson a Martin N-20 with nylon strings as a replacement. Nelson bought the instrument – made out of Brazilian rosewood with a Sitka spruce top – sight unseen for $750 (about $6,500 in today’s value), but on the condition Jackson installed the “Prismatone” pickup from the totalled Baldwin into it. A year later, Nelson rescued the guitar (along with his kilo stash of weed) from his burning ranch Near Nashville.

The guitar, which went on to define Nelson’s sound through the recording of acclaimed albums like ‘Shotgun Willie,’ ‘Red Headed Stranger’ and ‘Stardust,’ was christened “Trigger” in reference to Roy Rogers’ faithful steed. Nelson remarked - “Roy Rogers had a horse named Trigger. I figured, this is my horse!". Thanks to over 10,000 shows of exclusive use, Nelson’s workhorse has taken on a unique and iconic look. Over time, Willie has worn a large hole above the bridge that nearly reaches the sound hole; the result of flatpicking and strumming on a guitar with nylon strings designed to be finger-picked, without a pick guard. Even the steel frets have been worn down to wavey lines from the extensive playing.

The soundboard, meanwhile, has been signed by over 100 of Nelson’s friends, ranging from musicians to lawyers to football coaches, resulting in a truly storied instrument. The first to sign it was songwriter, Leon Russell. Nelson got the idea to get signatures on his own guitar when Russell asked him to sign his, saying it would make the instrument more valuable. In 1991, when the IRS was hounding Nelson for back payments, Nelson fretted that Trigger could be auctioned off, saying “When Trigger goes, I’ll quit“. In fact, the idea worried him so much he asked his daughter Lana to take the guitar from his studio before any IRS agents could arrive and see it there. Lana later delivered it to him in Maui where he concealed the guitar in his manager’s house until his debt was fully paid off later in 1993.

As for what the guitar means to Nelson? As he summed up in his 2007 book The Tao of Willie, Willie can’t imagine playing anything else - "One of the secrets to my sound is almost beyond explanation. My battered old Martin guitar, Trigger, has the greatest tone I've ever heard from a guitar. ... If I picked up the finest guitar made this year and tried to play my solos exactly the way you heard them on the radio or even at last night's show, I'd always be a copy of myself and we'd all end up bored. But if I play an instrument that is now a part of me, and do it according to the way that feels right for me ... I'll always be an original."

Tomorrow will take Willie’s monumental career almost to the present day - still making music at it’s finest and most beautiful.

 

[Purple7x08_24]

I'm enjoying this for modern country

Is this worth a listen to you?

 

[Professor Knowall]

In 2015, the Library of Congress presented Willie Nelson with the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. Willie was the first country artist to receive the rare award, which is perhaps the most prestigious of his countless honors. The Gershwin award honors “musical artists whose lifetime contributions in the field of popular song exemplify the standard of excellence associated with George and Ira Gershwin by promoting the genre of song as a vehicle of cultural understanding, entertaining and informing audiences and inspiring new generations.”

Picking up Willie’s magnificent music career where we left off yesterday in 2017, later that year, Willie released the second volume in the “Willie's Stash” series - “Willie Nelson and the Boys”, a collection of classic country covers recorded with his sons Lukas and Micah. As mentioned yesterday, Lukas heads the rock group POTR. Micah has also played in the POTR but also plays in a couple neo-psych-folk-rock-punk-orchestra bands, including one named Insects vs. Robots. He is also a very original illustrator, painter, and animator.

One of those standards for the album, ’Can I Sleep in Your Arms‘ was originally released by Jeannie Seely in 1973 and reached #6. It was written by Seely's one-time husband and song-writing great, Hank Cochran. If the melody seems familiar, there’s a good reason - it’s taken from the traditional cowboy western song ’Red River Valley‘. ’Can I Sleep in Your Arms‘ was recorded by Willie for his classic album “Red Headed Stranger”. As can be seen here, Willie and his 2 sons all harmonise beautifully - the apples have fallen close to the tree -


In 2018, Nelson and Cannon were back with another studio album, “Last Man Standing”, which debuted at # 3. At age 85, no longer able to croon with his weathered voice as he once did, Nelson opts for playing around with the rhythms of his delivery - an art he mastered decades earlier and makes him seem limber, adding a sense of vitality to the album. Willie realizes he's not going to be here forever but he's made up his mind to make the most of his time here - despite being riddled with songs about death and aging, “Last Man Standing “ is loaded with humour to balance the pathos, and the general theme seems to be - don’t worry about aging and death, just get on with life while you have it -

In ‘Heaven Is Closed‘, Willie looks at the problem of an overcrowded hell (heaven being closed off to him) and comes up with the very excellent plan to stay right where he is - in the studio making more great music. But Willie also deftly throws in some philosophy amongst his jocularity and stubbornness, finding peace as he questions an eternity of heaven and hell. Instead of coming to a conclusion about where our souls end up, Nelson offers the idea the two destinations may be similar, singing -
“… Could it be that hell is heaven and heaven is hell / and each one are both the same thing?…” -


The album’s title track ‘Me And You’ is supposedly a song about enduring friendship - but the joke is that the singer has and wants no friends to endure at all, as they just ain’t to be trusted -
“… It's just me and you / And we are definitely outnumbered / There's more of them than us /
Just when you think you made a new friend / They throw you under the bus …”
And when the singer seems to be talking to his friend, he is actually talking to himself as his own friend -
“… So now I just ask you the questions / But I'm the one I'm talkin' to /
The world has gone out of its mind / Except for me and you …” -


In ’Something You Get Through‘, to the shimmering jazz overtones of his high class backing band, Willie offers a serious song of consolation. By age 85, Willie had suffered the loss of any of his family and friends along the way - none harder for him than the suicide of his oldest son, Billy, in 1990. So here, he sings with the voice of first hand experience and listening to this song, one can’t help but reflect on the lives of loved ones now departed. Willie acknowledges that moving on with life after the loss of a loved one can be so hard - but though we never really get over the loss, we can still find a reason and a way to live on with our own lives -
“… It's not ours to be taken / It's a thing we get to do / Life goes on and on / And when it's gone / It lives in someone new …” -


Willie shakes off despondency about death and living on as his friends depart on ‘Last Man Standing’. The title track finds him singing "… it's getting hard to watch my pals check out…", but all to a jaunty rhythm. Ultimately, he decides he wants to be the last man standing, a sentiment that's reiterated a few tracks later in the album, ‘Bad Breath ‘, when Willie looks into the mirror and determines it's "… better to have bad breath than no breath at all…".

In the song, Willie name-checks 4 good friends and collaborators who had all died in the previous few years - and you would be familiar with 3 of them in this history - Waylon Jennings (posts # 774-781), Ray Price (# 269-275) and Merle Haggard (# 497-502). As for “Old Norro“, that refers to Norris "Norro" Wilson, a country music singer-songwriter, producer, and member of the Nashville Songwriters HoF, who had died just a few months before the song was written. Willie notes they had all “… lived just as fast as me ...” -



Having covered Willie’s weed and Trigger, another thing is Willie’s fighting ability. I mentioned right back at the start of Willie’s history he was a multi-talented at sport, representing his high school as a basketball point-guard (being too short for any other position), football and especially baseball, but having chosen music as his profession, he also needed to be good with his fists to make his way through those notorious Texan honky tonks I’ve previously mentioned many times in this history - the ones with the chicken wire to protect the players against the flying beer bottles. So by the time he came to Nashville in his late twenties and started hanging out at Tootsies Orchid Bar, Willie was well able to defend himself - he was one of those like Lefty or Waylon, you didn’t mess with, but Willie took things further.

During his childhood, Nelson grew interested in martial arts. He ordered self-defense manuals on jujitsu and judo that he saw advertised in Batman and Superman comic books. He started to formally practice kung fu after moving to Nashville in the 1960s. In the 1980s, Nelson began training in taekwondo and achieved a second-degree black belt. In the 1990s, though now in his sixties, he started practicing the Korean martial art GongKwon Yusul and in 2014, at age 81 after 20 years in the discipline, his Grand Master presented him with a fifth-degree black belt in a ceremony held in Austin. Nelson had developed his own unorthodox manner of training during the lengthy periods of time he was on the road touring. Nelson would conduct his martial arts training on his tour bus "The Honeysuckle Rose" and send videos to his supervising Master for review and critique. Perhaps all this has contributed to Willie’s continuing ability to still create, record and perform live well into old age.

Anyway, tomorrow will take Willie’s music right up until 2022, with him still not dead again - and still coming out with more original, high quality music.

 

[Professor Knowall]

Still in 2018, Just 5 months after the release of ‘Last Man Standing‘, featured yesterday, Willie Nelson released “My Way”, a tribute to one of Willie’s biggest vocal influencers, Frank Sinatra, for which he took home another Grammy, this time for Best Pop Vocal Album in 2019 - at age 86! In 2019, he issued his next studio LP, “Ride Me Back Home”, a mix of new material co-written by Nelson and producer Bud Cannon and covers of songs from Mac Davis, Billy Joel, and others. The album’s title track ‘Ride Me Back Home’ was co-written by Sonny Throckmorton and was the first single issued from the album.

Nelson decided to record ’Ride Me Back Home‘ due to his own love of horses and his own advocacy and action for horse welfare - Willie has stocked his ranch with some 700 horses rescued from various situations, which he allows to roam free. The lyrics of the song pay tribute both to the horses contribution to human development and a plea for horses, no longer needed as they once were, to now have a place where they can roam free -

Willie’s recording, obviously made with genuine love for the subject, went on to win him yet another Grammy, his 10th at the time for for Best Solo Performance.

In February 2020, Nelson lost what he described as his lifelong closest friend when his longtime drummer, Paul English, immortalized in Nelson’s road song ’Me and Paul‘, died at age 87 of pneumonia. A fellow Texan, English joined Nelson’s Family Band in 1966 and continued to perform with Nelson right up until his death. A former pimp and gang leader, English said in 2014 - “I was running girls and playing music at the same time. If I hadn’t gone with Willie, I would be in the penitentiary or dead”. Known for his tough but flamboyant style, English was not only Nelson’s drummer, but also his enforcer and de facto bodyguard, engaging in fistfights on the road, often pulling the .22-caliber pistol he kept in his boot. Even without a gun in his hand, the towering English cut an imposing figure. Both onstage and off, he adopted the persona of “The Devil,” grooming menacing facial hair, dressing all in black, and sporting a satin cape. Nelson himself helped further English’s roguish image, writing the song ‘Devil in a Sleepin’ Bag‘ about him for 1973’s “Shotgun Willie” album.

Nelson’s most famous ode to English, however, is ’Me and Paul‘ (post # 783), the autobiographical 1971 road song on “Yesterday’s Wine“, that documents the friends’ many misadventures, from drug busts in Laredo, Texas, to dust-ups at the airport in Milwaukee. The shuffling track was also included on 1976’s seminal country album “Wanted! The Outlaws”, and Nelson re-recorded the song as the title track of his 32nd studio album in 1984. English traded the monstrous chrome drum set he bashed away on in the seventies for a cocktail kit, English’s subtle brush drumming defined Nelson’s later concerts, those loose, freewheeling affairs where medleys and instrumental explorations became the Family Band’s signature.

In his 2015 autobiography, It’s a Long Story: My Life, Nelson recalled English as his ever-present guardian and partner-in-crime, writing ”Wild, street-smart Paul, who always had my back and got me out of more scraps than I care to recall.” In September 2022, Willie released a book chronicling their friendship, Me and Paul: Untold Tales of a Fabled Friendship, writing - "He was my best friend for many, many years. We went up and down the road a long time and had a lot of fun together”. At the launch, Willie said - "We grew up in a pretty rough neighbourhood …” - referring to his early music days in Fort Worth where English and Nelson found themselves in "… a lot of bar fights and a lot of stuff going on. He had my back all the time, and he was always there”.

In 2021, Willie released the elegantly mellow and elegiac ”First Rose of Spring” album, it’s title song showing there’s always a place for sweet sentiment in country music. Later that year, he released “The Willie Nelson Family”, a collection of spiritual tunes recorded with such family members as his band member pianist, sister Bobbie, his daughters Amy and Paula and his sons Lukas and Micah. Then on to 2022 and yet another album acclaimed from music critics across the board.

Mortality hangs heavily on “A Beautiful Time”, as perhaps it should. The album came out on April 29, 2022, Willie's 89th birthday, and it arrived roughly 2 months after the death of his sister Bobbie, who played alongside him for the better part of 50 years, including his most iconic albums. The album was recorded before Bobbie’s passing, with Buddy Cannon, Willie's regular collaborator since 2012 with “Heroes” and it’s very much of a piece with the albums that immediately proceed it, that also feature Nelson pondering ageing and mortality, with a sense of earned wisdom and wry humour.

Not only is Nelson’s 72nd solo studio LP (you read that right!) most likely the best country album of 2022 (with only a month left to unseat it), it’s also as assured a showcase for his ineffable gifts as he’s ever crafted - a shot of vitality, good humour and pathos from a iconic artist fast-approaching his 90th birthday but showing no sign he’s ready to blow out a final candle anytime soon. Some of this sensibility derives from how Nelson doesn't shy away from the inevitable, singing about death directly - the opener, co-written by Chris Stapleton and Rodney Crowell, ’I'll Love You 'Til the Day I Die‘, a slow country waltz with impeccably brushed drums and string bass, weepy honky tonk piano and quietly crying steel, the harmonica with all the lustre of a high plains drifter. Nelson’s sidekick, battered old Trigger, is in fine form, as is Willie himself, his phrased vocals sliding here and everywhere, just as they should -


The original synth-pop version of Leonard Cohen’s 1988 ‘Tower of Song‘ is by no means definitive - as with many of Cohen’s songs, live versions from later in his life do his wise-beyond-their-years lyrics much more justice. Covers of this song, though, tend to be by younger artists, not older ones, and they usually reach for a gospel-like reverence in spite of funny lines like - “… I asked Hank Williams, ‘How lonely does it get?’ / Hank Williams hasn’t answered me yet...”. I suspect Nelson feels that bitter joke in his bones as deeply as he does - “… My friends are gone and my hair is grey …” in his head and his heart. In fact, he feels every line of this great song, not as if he were singing some sacred text as a young interpreter would do, but rather narrating his own storied career - or casting an oddball pop classic as a country standard, replete with lonesome harmonica and gorgeous, crying steel guitar. I’ve never heard a better version -

When Willie sings of Hank Williams being “… a hundred floors above me in the Tower of Song …”, I can’t help feel the 99th floor of the tower is empty, reserved for Willie when his time has finally come.

A Willie original, co-written at age 88, is an extraordinary, thoughtful ode to pragmatism and patience, in a time where both seem in short supply, ‘Energy Follows Thought’ holds true to the style of his zenith in the 1970’s, rather than what modern country has become - a caricature of truck-driving, beer-drinking small-towners with nothing behind repetitive, emotionless auto-tuned delivered lyrics. Musically, ‘Energy Follows Thought‘ is calming - mellow guitar in a beautiful western melody with a tranquil hint of harmonica at the end. Nelson’s incredible songwriting skills show through in this melancholy yet positive song sung from a voice of experience about staying optimistic in hard times, freedom but with caution. mindfulness and deliberation, as you get back what you put into this world, so make sure you’re putting out good things -
“… Your mind is in control / Even when you do not know / And if you let it idle / Ain’t no telling where it’ll go /
Imagine what you want / And get out of the way / Remember energy follows thought / So be careful what you say …” -


Don’t fool yourself into thinking that at 89, Willie Nelson can’t have much left in the tank. As he proves time and time again on his latest album, he’s still one of the best at writing songs, as well as picking ones. Written by Jim “Moose” Brown, Scotty Emerick and Don Sampson, “Dusty Bottles” is just about the perfect song for the perfectly-aged Willie Nelson to perform,
finding him appreciating his age and detailing all of the life lessons he’s learned by getting older -
“… Dusty bottles pour a finer glass of wine / An old beat-up guitar just sounds better / And wisdom only comes with time /
I can spot mistakes before they happen / Separate the BS from the truth / I’m learnin’ when I need to keep my mouth shut /
Like I couldn’t in my wild and wasted youth...”


In March 2022, a few weeks after the release of “A Beautiful Life”, Willie’s beloved sister and band pianist, Bobbie, died at age 91. As a teenager, Willie and Bobbie, alongside Bobbie's husband Bud Fletcher, played at honkey tonks all over Texas - some of them real rough. Bobbie Nelson’s marriage fell apart around 1955, and she lost her 3 sons due to her playing in honky-tonks - a scandalous choice for a woman at the time, as she later wrote - “That was the hardest part of my life. And I couldn’t play with Willie at that time, because I wasn’t supposed to even enter into a club. They would not have agreed to let me have my children back”. So she left the band to attend business college and raise her 3 sons, but she got back into performing, first at Hammond Organ Co., demonstrating the company's organs then as a full-time musician playing local clubs. In 1973, when Willie signed with Atlantic Records, Bobbie, at age 42 and her children now adults, rejoined Willie as his pianist. Over the next 5 decades, she was involved of every step of Willie's whirlwind road to musical fame.

Bobbie remained with Willie’s band for the next 5 decades, until their last show together in October 2021. Her traditional
yet graceful style was a key component of the Nelson’s sound. In 2008, at age 76, she recorded her first solo record, “Audiobiography“, collection of boogie piano instrumentals. In 2007, Willie, who also described Bobbie as a child prodigy
and the more musically talented than himself but too modest to put herself forward. said - “Whenever I’ve needed a piano
player, I’ve had Sister Bobbie right there. Whenever our band plays, Sister Bobbie is the best musician on the stage“. In 2016, Bobbie joined Willie when she was inducted into the Texas Music HoF. In 2020, she co-authored with Willie and writer David Ritz the autobiography Me and Sister Bobbie: True Tales of the Family Band.

Willie’s career - at least some of the more important parts, for it’s simply to much to capture it all here - has now been taken right up to 2022. But, Willie’s greatness and iconic studs being what it is, I just have one more small instalment to make to finish his still on-going career - tomorrow.

 

[Professor Knowall]

While swimming in Hawaii in 1981, Nelson's lung collapsed. He was taken to the Maui Memorial Hospital and his scheduled concerts were cancelled. He temporarily stopped smoking cigarettes each time his lungs became congested, and resumed smoking 2-3 packs per day when the congestion ended. After several bouts of pneumonia, he decided to quit either marijuana or tobacco. He chose to quit tobacco. In 2008, he started smoking marijuana with a carbon-free system to avoid the effects of smoke. In 2004, Nelson underwent surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome, as he had damaged his wrists by continuously playing Triggar and only wrote songs during his recovery. In 2012, he canceled a fund-raising appearance in the Denver area, supposedly suffering from breathing problems due to high altitude and emphysema. His publicist Elaine Schock confirmed soon after that Nelson's health was good and he was heading to his next scheduled concert in Dallas. This year, Willie confessed that he had, in fact, overdosed on weed and was too high to perform. After repeated instances of pneumonia and emphysema through the years, Nelson underwent stem-cell therapy in 2015 to improve the state of his lungs. Then early this year he took the radical step of giving up weed altogether as it was affecting his vocals. Anyway, thankfully, Willie is still with us, and not just that, he’s still producing great music, as we’ve just seen.

Today is the final edition of Willie Nelson’s career and music. Though his potted history has gone in longer than any other artist here - even Dolly Parton - there are still whole segments I’ve been unable to fit in, such has been the immensity of his storied career - with 2 auto biographies and several other biographies to draw from. I’ve also had too leave out dozens of worthy songs. Today will partially plug just a couple of gaps I either lightly brushed over or omitted up to now, starting in 1985 when Willie teamed up with 3 of his friends, Waylon, Cash and Kristofferson to form the country supergroup The Highwaymen. The group was heavily marketed as the “original Outlaws”, though, as outlined in post # 772, this really only applied to Waylon and Willie as Cash was never part of the Outlaw movement, and Kristofferson only had a bit part. They released 3 albums over 10 years, the first being the most successful. The 4 friends toured together and were obviously enjoying themselves on stage while making their fans happy.

In truth, the group was really carried by Willie and Waylon, who by this time had kicked his crippling cocaine addiction that almost ended his career and life in 1979, and his voice had recovered. However, Cash was by now well passed his prime, still battling his long term amphetamine and anti-depression addictions, and didn’t even have a recording contract at the time his friends rescued him. He was still able to contribute vocally but wasn’t the dynamic force he once. Kristofferson by this time was more a movie star than musician and anyway, by his own admission, his vocals weren’t great. This live clip, taken at the Nassau Coliseum, New York in 1990 of Willie singing his 1984 hit ‘City Of New Orleans’ -

After their Outlaw era collaborations, Willie and Waylon themselves released additional duet albums, including “WWII” in 1982, “Take It To the Limit” in 1983 and “Clean Shirt“ in 1991. Many have since asked why Merle Haggard wasn’t in The Highwaymen (perhaps in place of Kristofferson), given his stature. Well, though both Waylon and Merle were friends and collaborators with Willie, they didn’t get on with each other - it all stemmed back to a poker game one night around 1971 when Merle cleaned out Waylon at a vulnerable time of everything he had - some $5,000. Waylon never forgot or forgave.

I started Willie’s history with him being known more as a song-writer writing great hits for others (as I did for Kristofferson and Bill Anderson) rather than a performer, including ‘Ain’t It Funny How Time Slipped Away’ performed by Billy Walker in 1961. Over the decades, it has been covered by so many artists from a multitude of genres including Elvis Presley, Al Green, Glen Campbell, and more. But Willie came up with the best version of all. Here, Willie sings the song in 1997 for a songwriters’ night and spoke the lyrics in this version versus singing them. It is breathtaking. You can hear the gravity of the words as they float off of his tongue as he accompanies himself on guitar. The band chimes in, and the softness of the word shines brightly next to the musical arrangement. The accompanying singer/songwriters sit and absorb the gravity of the words and Nelson’s performance. And how about that jazz style playing on trigger? -

Oh - those mesmerised artists in the clip. No shabby bunch - I recognise Kris Kristofferson, Bobby Bare, Tom T Hall, Gene Watson, Porter Waggoner and Mickey Gilley.

Willie is, without doubt, the most popular duet partner in country music history. In fact, his first Top 10 hit - 1962's ’Willingly‘ - was a duet with Shirley Collie, who became his second wife. So famous has Willie become for his duets with musicians of all genres - he even had a # 1 hit for a cheesy pop tune with a Latin Flavour he did with Julio Iglesias - that when George Strait in 2019 finally got to do a duet with Willie, the subject of the songs lyrics was … George finally getting to do a duet with Willie! It was titled ‘Sing One With Willie’. To avoid Willie’s history going as long as his life, I decided to exclude over a dozen great duets and limit it to just 2 - with one of those a tribute to a recently departed legend.

I’ve already featured several duets with Waylon, 2 with Merle and ‘Seven Spanish Angels’ with Ray Charles. But the artist Willie became the closest friend two was (ironically) Countrypolitan king, and one of country music’s greatest vocalists, Ray Price (posts # 269-275). Despite their differing commercial music paths, Price impeccably groomed in a suit and tie, in contrast to Willie, they actually had a lot in common (in fact, musically speaking, Willie is closer to Price than Waylon) and were even neighbours in Texas for many years, where Willie introduced Price to the joys of smoking weed. Their history goes way back to 1961 when Willie joined Ray’s band, The Cherokee Cowboys as a bass player after Ray Price recorded Nelson's ’Night Life‘ and his previous bassist Johnny Paycheck quit. Flip forward a few decades and they collaborated for several albums. Willie released a tribute album of Ray Price songs in 2016, after Price died in 2013 aged 87.

The sentiment of Waylon Jennings' ’Bob Wills Is Still the King‘ (post # 772) still holds true in Texas. With that in mind, what could be more appropriate than Nelson and fellow Texan Price teaming up for one of Wills' signature songs? But I still had a tough choice - which signature tune to choose? - Crystal Gayle provided background vocals on the Wills classic ‘Faded Love’ that Willie and Ray took to # 3 in 1980 and would‘ve done even better if Nelson's label hadn’t released the smash hit ‘On the Road Again’ just a few weeks after ’Faded Love‘ first charted. But in the end I forced myself to skip that in favour of this video clip of the Countrypolitan king, Ray in his suit and tie, and the Outlaw Willie playing Bob Will’s biggest hit, San Antonio Road, with its Texan Western swing -


The second duet I’ve chosen is to honour the passing of country music legend Loretta Lynn (posts # 489-493) on October 4, age 90. There was a separate thread dedicated to Loretta’s passing, but I think there should be something on this Country Music thread. ’Lay Me Down’ was recorded for Lynn’s album “Full Circle”, which became Lynn’s highest-charting album ever. Although Loretta and Willie had been friends for years, this was the first time the two country icons ever recorded a song together. Despite this, they nailed the song on their first take. Lynn said - “I am so proud to be able to sing a song with my friend, Willie. I love this song so much. Lynn and Nelson have not appeared on stage together since the Farm Aid benefit concert in 1985. “It had been 30 years since we’d last seen each other. Willie and I got to meet and talk about old times when we shot the music video in Nashville. Willie is one of those people that, even if you haven’t seen them for 30 years, you feel like it was just yesterday. We have a natural respect and love for each other.” Nelson said - “I’m excited to have a new record and video out with Loretta Lynn, who is one of the few remaining traditional country artists, and one of my favorite people. She’s an original!”. ‘Lay Me Down’ is now the perfect song to mark Loretta’s passing last month -
“… When they lay me down someday / my soul will rise, then fly away. / This old world will turn around. /
I’ll be at peace when they lay me down./ This life isn’t fair, it seems. / It’s filled with tears and broken dreams. /
There are no tears where I am bound / and I’ll be at peace when they lay me down …” -


For the very last song, I’ve chosen another from Willie’s most recent album, “A Beautiful Time” - which like the last 5 or so he’s released, would be suitable as a farewell album - only he refuses to go away. The title song ’A Beautiful Time’ is a song of the open road, rose-tinting to the max the travelling show experience, the arrangement now more barroom than campfire - a clean and sparse country production that allows the songs room to breathe. Amy Nelson, adds harmony vocals to her fathers. This song seems to sum up, if any song can, Willie’s truly amazing musical journey and his life long love of music -
“… If I ever get old, I'll still love the road / Still love the way that it winds / Now when the last song's been played /
I'll look back and say / I sure had a beautiful time …” -


Since his first album in 1962. Nelson's discography includes an incredible 98 studio albums - 72 solo studio albums, 14 live albums, 51 compilation albums, 41 video albums … and also 26 collaborative studio albums with other artists. As an actor, Willie has appeared in over 30 films and has co-authored several books. He’s also a long time activist for the Democratic Party (which has both won and lost him fans, but for me, it’s just all about the music) and has never shied away from expressing his thoughts about the legalization of marijuana. There’s lot’s of other causes he has actively supported, including the ranch he has turned over as a sanctuary for rescued horses.

Nelson’s awards are numerous, including 11 CMA’s, 6 ACM’s and 12 Grammys. He was inducted into the Country Music HoF back in 1993, received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999, and won the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize in 2015. In 2003, CMT placed him at # 4 among the “Greatest Men of Country“. In 2008, his distinctive vocal style – once considered a deficit in the 1960’s – earned him a spot on Rolling Stone‘s list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time, while his distinctive guitar style also saw him included on Rolling Stone‘s 100 Greatest Guitarists list. He received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1998. In 2010, he was inducted into the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry. In 2011, Nelson was inducted into the National Agricultural HoF for his Farm Aid Foundation and annual fund raiser concerts to benefit farmers. In 2015 Nelson won the Gershwin Prize, the lifetime award of the Library of Congress.

In 2010, Austin renamed Second Street to Willie Nelson Boulevard. The city also unveiled a life-size statue to honour Nelson, at the entrance of Austin City Limits' new studio. During the ceremony, Nelson performed ’Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die’. The same year, Nelson was honoured during the CMA Awards as the very first recipient of the “Lifetime Achievement” Award, which was henceforth named after him. In 2014, he was in the inaugural class inducted into the Austin City Limits HoF. Also included among the first inductees was his friend Darrell Royal, whose jamming parties that Nelson participated in were the source of inspiration for the show, and Nelson it’s first performer.

Times change, political landscapes shift, new trends in music arrive and expire with the passing of the years. But never will a moment come when we no longer need great songwriters - musical minds that know how to make sense and poetry out of our strange existence. Nor will we ever run out of use for genius singers, voices with the incalculable ability to dig into a lyric and render universal emotions from words on a page. Willie Nelson of today is as valuable a figure in American music as he was when he and his mate Waylon Jennings set about emancipating themselves from the Nashville sound and label system in the 1970’s. Willie Nelson is a living treasure of music.

After finally finishing with Willie Nelson - you may tell I’ve been a long time fan - in fact I was into Willie Nelson long before I became a general country music fan and could’ve added so much more - it’s time for another break. I’ve been called to go over to the South West of Western Australia, so it’ll be at least 2 weeks before I’m back with any more history.

 

[Professor Knowall]

Now that I’ve finished the Willie. Elton segment, I’ll get back to this and answer the question put -

I'm enjoying this for modern country

Is this worth a listen to you?

Yeah … nah, it’s just too poppy for my taste. Actually, I think Mize has some real talent as a songwriter, but as for his singing …
all I hear is the bane of ”modern” country - the audio-tune mic, which rips any potential emotion out of his voice and makes his songs sound bland and generic to me - more like mildly pleasant (or sometimes irritating) background music but nothing more. Bit to be fair, pleasant background, largely meaningless music sells well and he’s done OK professionally.

”Modern” seems an oxymoron term for country music. Just like the blues, it needs to have some connection to it’s past to keep it country, not pure pop.

There’s at least 20 current country artists I’d rather listen too than Logan Mize. Maybe if he stripped back his over-produced recordings and sang with his real voice, I’d add him to my playlist.

 

[Schauermann]

Couldn't resist, had to get myself some Hank 3 ink:
https://i.ibb.co/LhdD923/xxx.jpg

 

[Professor Knowall]

Couldn't resist, had to get myself some Hank 3 ink:
https://i.ibb.co/LhdD923/xxx.jpg

It was his 50th birthday just 2 days ago. Not everyone likes him but he, more than anyone else in the 21st century, brought traditional instrumentation and southern roots back to country music while also turning thousands of punk and metal fans onto the virtues of country and establishing an independent DIY attitude that stood apart from the Music Row industry (thus showing the way for a new generation such as Sturgill Simpson, Cody Jinks, Tyler Childers and Zach Bryan). Besides the lyrics which tells its own story, the laid back musical accompaniment, recreating an early 1950’s honky tonk sound, is just brilliant -

 

[Schauermann]

Saw Lera Lynn a few days ago. Surely the birth of her son made her more positive. Was talking a lot about him not about death anymore ("This place used to be a morgue and I checked my playlist and 3/4 of my songs are about death" back in 2019) . Still like her alot even when I prefer the earlier stuff. But that is the case with most bands/artist I like...

 

[Schauermann]

Ps Germany probably is not the best place for gigs like this, but maneged to see:

• Bob Wayne
• Heathen Apostles
• Whitney Rose
• Truck Stop
• Lera Lynn

this year. Liked all of them. And a lot a attitude in all of them to tour Europe in such a small scale (Bob Wayne even refused a beer given to him from the audience because he had to drive to Holland next day, traveling with a girl probably his girlfriend/wife as merchandiser alone). All probably drawing less then 100 people. Apart from Truck Stop who are German and somehow big here.

 

[Professor Knowall]

Ps Germany probably is not the best place for gigs like this, but maneged to see:

• Bob Wayne
• Heathen Apostles
• Whitney Rose
• Truck Stop
• Lera Lynn

this year. Liked all of them. And a lot a attitude in all of them to tour Europe in such a small scale (Bob Wayne even refused a beer given to him from the audience because he had to drive to Holland next day, traveling with a girl probably his girlfriend/wife as merchandiser alone). All probably drawing less then 100 people. Apart from Truck Stop who are German and somehow big here.

That’s much better than I’ve managed this year - which is nobody apart from local acts in pubs. Also much prefer small venues.

 

[Professor Knowall]

So I’m back from the wilds of WA with more history, this time on the son of a legend - and not just any legend but son of the greatest country legend of them all - which was both a blessing and a curse, ultimately leading our latest artist, after a decade of struggle, emerging from the omnipresent shadow cast by his father (or was it cast by his mother?) to create his own outlaw pathway to being a country music great. Unlike many offspring of famous parents, he managed to emerge from his father’s shadow, but only after he‘d made a complete break in the 1970s, reinventing himself as a rowdy bluesy country rocker.

Randall Hank Williams was born in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1949. A month later, his father, the immortal Hank Williams (posts # 205 & 214) made his Grand Ole Opry debut, singing ‘Lovesick Blues‘, drawing an unprecedented 6 encores and had to be implored not to call him out for more in order to allow the rest of the show to go on. Hank Williams Snr, who nicknamed his son “Bocephus” after Grand Ole Opry comedian Rod Brasfield’s ventriloquist dummy, had just 3 1/2 years left to live. He spent much of that time, despite his personal life and health spiralling out of control, travelling, performing and recording, becoming the greatest country singer-songwriter of all time, but during radio performances he would send a message to his boy, closing shows by saying, “Don’t worry, Bocephus, I’m coming home”.

But when Williams came home in January 1953, it was in a coffin. Audrey Williams was left with a family to raise, and with a son who was soon squealing for a guitar of his own. Raised in Nashville, Audrey soon arranged for Hank, Jr. to have a music education like no other. He learned music from the finest of teachers. Earl Scruggs (# 194-195) gave him banjo lessons, Jerry Lee Lewis (# 349-352) showed him piano licks. Other lessons were received from legends Merle Haggard (# 497-502), Johnny Cash (# 338-345), rocker Fats Domino and blues great Lightnin' Hopkins, who taught Hank Jnr about blues vocal techniques and blues guitar - a crucial influence, even if it took another 20 years to come out. With rock’n’roll in full flower, Hank Jr began playing a lot of electric guitar (though not onstage, where he only Hank Williams’ songs, in Hank Williams’ style). In addition, Hank Jr also learned and became proficient with the bass guitar, upright bass, steel guitar, dobro, keyboards, saxophone, harmonica, fiddle and drums. He was probably the most musically educated child in the USA.

But despite the excellence of his all-round music education, right from the beginning, his mother Audrey saw Hank Jnr as a cash-cow that could be capitalised on the legendary name he had inherited and worked to mold her son into a miniature version of his late father. With the most famous pedigree in country music, Hank Jr was the living proof, the reincarnation of the sainted Hank Williams, dead of opiates and liquor before the age of 30. Having learned his daddy's songs, memorised his daddy's jokes, even practiced his daddy's stage patter, as taught to him by Audrey, at age 8 Hank Jr was put to work singing, making his music debut, dressed in a black suit for a Georgia show, singing his father’s songs to wild applause. An early 1957 review stated - “We listened to Hank, Jr. sing some of the songs which made his dad so famous. The similarity of style is haunting. He has the same lonesome quality, the same break in his voice, the same pronunciation”. By the age 9, in 1958, Hank Jr was touring in earnest, virtually full-time, with his mother’s Caravan of Stars show.

At age 11 in 1960, Hank Jr made his own Opry debut, walking across the same wooden boards his father had walked on, and, just like his daddy, singing ‘Lovesick Blues‘ - and encoring. At age 14, in 1964, Hank Jr made his TV debut on The Jimmy Dean Show, still just performing his father’s songs. He also guest-starred on another TV show, Shindig! Hank Jr (or rather his mother, Audrey on his behalf) then signed a $300,000-per-year recording contract. Hank Jr promptly made his debut on the charts, reaching # 5 in 1964 with his version of ‘Long Gone Lonesome Blues‘ - another cover of a song written and originally recorded by his legendary father - a perfect example of what Hank Jnr was performing at age 15 -


Later in 1964, Hank Jr sang all the songs for a movie biopic about his father, Your Cheatin' Heart, the soundtrack LP reaching # 5, and starred in another movie A Time to Sing. He had his second Top 5 hit in 1966 with his self-penned (at age 15). His first serious composition, a slice of autobiography, ’Standing in the Shadows‘ is a moving composition that inspires sympathy for the constant comparisons to his father - and the lyrics, while still honouring his father’s legacy, describes his insecurity about his own accomplishments and reveals an emerging growing weariness on the still young Hank Jnr, constrained as he was by his mother to only be the imitator of his dead father, who he had no living memory of -
“I know that I’m not great / Some folks say I imitate / Anymore, I don’t know / I’m just doin’ the best I can / ...
It’s hard standing in the shadow of a very famous man…” -


Following the success of Hank Jr’s self-penned ‘Standing In The Shadows’, and with his pleas to be more than just an imitator of his daddy, Audrey eventually relented somewhat, allowing her 15 year old son to expand his range beyond just being the reincarnation of ol’ Hank. In late 1964 he cut a duet album of country standards with Connie Francis, which didn’t chart. He cut another of western and cowboy songs in 1965 which also made no impact. He tried a blues album in 1966 which also bombed. He even began to explore rock & roll somewhat, occasionally performing under the name Rockin' Randall to no success. His one successful album in this period was a 1965 “duet” album of his voice spliced together with old recordings of his dead father - this reached # 8. It seemed Audrey was right in her belief Hank Jr could only make his way in the business as his fathers living voice. But teenage Hank Jr still believed he could be more.

Hank Jr was finally legally free to break from his overbearing mother Audrey when he turned 18 in 1967. Soon after his birthday, in his first step on the long road to becoming a music Outlaw, he left home and Audrey’s control, continuing in his efforts to step out from under his father's shadow and find his own voice - though this turned out to be a long and difficult road. His first album after the break was the appropriately titled “My Own Way”. The affected Hank Sr impression heard on most of his earlier recordings is almost gone - in its place is a mature sound much older than Hank Jr’s actual age of 18. The album produced three minor hits, but the country audience didn't quite know what to make of Hank Jr at this point. His best selling albums in the '60s were the ones on which he sang his father's songs or directly addressed his legacy. Initially he mostly aspired to be a straightforward country singer in a style that falls somewhere between Bobby Bare and Carl Smith, singing hard country songs with a pop chorus.

In 1968, 19 y.o. Hank Jr starred in the movie A Time to Sing, playing a budding country star on his way to the top, with lots of music thrown in along the way. The soundtrack album is almost entirely Williams'. Time to Sing contained one of Williams' biggest 1960‘s hits, the gorgeous Charlie Rich-style ballad ’It's All Over but the Crying’, which peaked at # 3 and also cracked the Canadian charts at # 3. Hank Jr was steadily proving he was too good a vocalist and all-round musician to be confined to just being his father’s tribute act -


Showing that Hank Jr, despite being free from Audrey’s control, still wasn’t, at age 20, able to really escape the shadow of his fathers enormous legacy, in 1969 he released the album ”Songs My Father Left Me“ - and it was predictably an enormous success, becoming Hank Jr’s first album to go all the way to # 1 (his 3 previous most successful albums had all been covers of his fathers songs). Although Hank Jr was the first to record ’Cajun Baby’ for the album, he created the song by composing music to go with lyrics that had been written by his father, who was living in Shreveport Louisiana at the time. The single, with it’s Cajun accordion accompaniment and echoes of Hank Williams Snr’s great hit ‘Jambalaya’, rose to #3 in 1969 -


So here we have Hank Jr’s quandary - he had grown tired of his reputation as a Hank Williams imitator and was trying to create his own style, but there was still a much larger (and thus more financially lucrative) market who wanted nothing more than listen to Hank Jr be the living proof of his legendary father. However, as much as following in his father’s footsteps had its merit, Williams Jr still needed to find his own place in the world of music. For years he struggled, uncomfortably, to break the mold - after all, he had as much respect for his long gone father and for his music as anyone. Hank Jr felt trapped and was desperately unhappy, falling into drug and alcohol abuse soon after the age of 18. But he persisted, willing and musically able to try a variety of country sub-genres. As the 1960’s gave way to the 1970’s and he entered his twenties, he was having some success in the charts and was well known, but was not in the top tier of stars.

Released as the only single from the album of the same name, the Countrypolitan ballad ’Eleven Roses’, was Hank’s first #1 as a solo artist in 1972. With vocals that seem imitative of George Jones, it tells the tale of a man who was apparently sorry and regretful for the wrong things he did to his lover that he decided to give her a bouquet of 11 roses. Hank picks 11 red roses from the garden to send to a lover to beg for forgiveness in a cheesy declaration of his love. Why not 12 roses? Oh, that’s simple - all she has to do is hold the 11 roses up and look in a mirror and the 12th rose will be looking right back at her! Ten years letter he might’ve followed this up with ‘Is That A Ladder In Your Tights Or Is It A Stairway To Heaven?’. -

The remorseful tone in Williams Jr.’s voice as the lyrical narrator made his tale not only believable but an easy favorite for fans that already saw a hint of blues and a little rock in Hank Jr’s country music already emerging before he officially became an outlaw that was about to take the music industry by storm.

That’s enough for today, which briefly sketched Hank’s difficult, yet still fairly successful, pre-Outlaw career - and going by YouTube comments, there are plenty of (probably old) fans who prefer this stage of his career. But that’s the minority view - his best days were still to come, but not before going through profound personal and health crisis’, as tomorrow will reveal.