| Willie
Nelson as a songwriter and a
performer, played a vital role in
post-rock & roll country music. Although
he didn't become a star until the
mid-'70s, Nelson spent the '60s writing
songs that became hits for stars like
Ray Price ("Night Life"), Patsy Cline
("Crazy"), Faron Young ("Hello Walls"),
and Billy Walker ("Funny How Time Slips
Away") as well as releasing a series of
records on Liberty and RCA that earned
him a small, but devoted, cult
following. During the early '70s, Willie
aligned himself with Waylon Jennings and
the burgeoning outlaw country movement
which made him into a star in 1975.
Following the crossover success of that
year's The Red Headed Stranger and "Blue
Eyes Crying in the Rain," Nelson was a
genuine star, as recognizable in pop
circles as he was to the country
audience; in addition to recording, he
also launched an acting career in the
early '80s. Even when he was a star,
Willie never played it safe musically.
Instead, he borrowed from a wide variety
of styles, including traditional pop,
Western swing, jazz, traditional
country, cowboy songs, honky tonk, rock
& roll, folk, and the blues, creating a
distinctive, elastic hybrid. Nelson
remained at the top of the country
charts until the mid-'80s, when his
lifestyle -- which had always been close
to the outlaw clichés his music flirted
with -- began to spiral out of control,
culminating in an infamous battle with
the IRS in the late '80s. During the
'90s, Nelson's sales never reached the
heights that he had experienced a decade
earlier, but he remained a vital icon in
country music, having greatly influenced
the new country, new traditionalist, and
alternative country movements of the
'80s and '90s as well as leaving behind
a legacy of classic songs and
recordings.
Nelson began performing music as a
child growing up in Abbott, TX. After
his father died and his mother ran away,
Nelson and his sister Bobbie were raised
by their grandparents, who encouraged
both children to play instruments.
Willie picked up the guitar, and by the
time he was seven, he was already
writing songs. Bobbie learned to play
piano, eventually meeting -- and later
marrying -- fiddler Bud Fletcher, who
invited both of the siblings to join his
band. Nelson had already played with
Raychecks' Polka Band, but with
Fletcher, he acted as the group's
frontman. Willie stayed with Fletcher
throughout high school. Upon his
graduation, he joined the Air Force but
had to leave shortly afterward, when he
became plagued by back problems.
Following his disenrollment from the
service, he began looking for full-time
work. After he worked several part-time
jobs, he landed a job as a country DJ at
Fort Worth's KCNC in 1954. Nelson
continued to sing in honky tonks as he
worked as a DJ, deciding to make a stab
at recording career by 1956. That year,
he headed to Vancouver, WA, where he
recorded Leon Payne's "Lumberjack." At
that time, Payne was a DJ and he plugged
"Lumberjack" on the air, which
eventually resulted in sales of 3,000 --
a respectable figure for an independent
single, but not enough to gain much
attention. For the next few years,
Willie continued to DJ and sing in
clubs. During this time, he sold "Family
Bible" to a guitar instructor for 50
dollars, and when the song became a hit
for Claude Gray in 1960, Nelson decided
to move to Nashville the following year
to try his luck. Though his nasal voice
and jazzy, off-center phrasing didn't
win him many friends -- several demos
were made and then rejected by various
labels -- his songwriting ability didn't
go unnoticed, and soon Hank Cochran
helped Willie land a publishing contract
at Pamper Music. Ray Price, who co-owned
Pamper Music, recorded Nelson's "Night
Life" and invited him to join his
touring band, the Cherokee Cowboys, as a
bassist.
Arriving at the beginning of 1961,
Price's invitation began a watershed
year for Nelson. Not only did he play
with Price -- eventually taking members
of the Cherokee Cowboys to form his own
touring band -- but his songs also
provided major hits for several other
artists. Faron Young took "Hello Walls"
to number one for nine weeks, Billy
Walker made "Funny How Time Slips Away"
into a Top 40 country smash, and Patsy
Cline made "Crazy" into a Top Ten pop
crossover hit. Earlier in the year, he
signed a contract with Liberty Records
and began releasing a series of singles
that were usually drenched in strings.
"Willingly," a duet with his then-wife
Shirley Collie, became a Top Ten hit for
Nelson early in 1962, and it was
followed by another Top Ten single,
"Touch Me," later that year. Both
singles made it seem like Nelson was
primed to become a star, but his career
stalled just as quickly as it had taken
off, and he was soon charting in the
lower regions of the Top 40. Liberty
closed its country division in 1964, the
same year Roy Orbison had a hit with
"Pretty Paper."
When the Monument recordings failed
to become hits, Nelson moved to RCA
Records in 1965, the same year he became
a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Over the
next seven years, Willie had a steady
stream of minor hits, highlighted by the
number 13 hit "Bring Me Sunshine" in
1969. Toward the end of his stint with
RCA, he had grown frustrated with the
label, who had continually tried to
shoehorn him into the heavily produced
Nashville sound. By 1972, he wasn't even
able to reach the country Top 40.
Discouraged by his lack of success,
Nelson decided to retire from country
music, moving back to Austin, TX, after
a brief and disastrous sojourn into pig
farming. Once he arrived in Austin,
Nelson realized that many young rock
fans were listening to country music
along with the traditional honky tonk
audience. Spotting an opportunity,
Willie began performing again, scrapping
his pop-oriented Nashville sound and
image for a rock- and folk-influenced
redneck outlaw image. Soon, he earned a
contract with Atlantic Records.
Shotgun Willie (1973), Nelson's first
album for Atlantic, was evidence of the
shift of his musical style, and although
it initially didn't sell well, it earned
good reviews and cultivated a dedicated
cult following. By the fall of 1973, his
version of Bob Wills' "Stay All Night
(Stay a Little Longer)" had cracked the
country Top 40. The following year, he
delivered the concept album Phases and
Stages, which increased his following
even more with the hit singles "Bloody
Mary Morning" and "After the Fire Is
Gone." But the real commercial
breakthrough didn't arrive until 1975,
when he severed ties with Atlantic and
signed to Columbia Records, who gave him
complete creative control of his
records. Willie's first album for
Columbia, The Red Headed Stranger, was a
spare concept album about a preacher,
featuring only his guitar and his
sister's piano. The label was reluctant
to release with such stark arrangements,
but they relented and it became a huge
hit, thanks to Nelson's understated
cover of Roy Acuff's "Blue Eyes Crying
in the Rain."
Following the breakthrough success of
The Red Headed Stranger as well as
Waylon Jennings' simultaneous success,
outlaw country -- so named because it
worked outside of the confines of the
Nashville industry -- became a
sensation, and RCA compiled the
various-artists album Wanted: The
Outlaws!, using material Nelson,
Jennings, Tompall Glaser, and Jessi
Colter had previously recorded for the
label. The compilation boasted a number
one single in the form of the newly
recorded Jennings and Nelson duet "Good
Hearted Woman," which was also named the
Country Music Association's single of
the year. For the next five years,
Nelson consistently charted on both the
country and pop charts, with "Remember
Me," "If You've Got the Money I've Got
the Time," and "Uncloudy Day" becoming
Top Ten country singles in 1976; "I Love
You a Thousand Ways" and the Mary Kay
Place duet "Something to Brag About"
were Top Ten country singles the
following year.
Nelson enjoyed his most successful
year to date in 1978, as he charted with
two very dissimilar albums. Waylon and
Willie, his first duet album with
Jennings, was a major success early in
the year, spawning the signature song
"Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to
Be Cowboys." Later in the year, he
released Stardust, a string-augmented
collection of pop standards produced by
Booker T. Jones. Most observers believed
that the unconventional album would
derail Nelson's career, but it
unexpectedly became one of the most
successful records in his catalog,
spending almost ten years in the country
charts and eventually selling over four
million copies. After the success of
Stardust, Willie branched out into film,
appearing in the Robert Redford movie
The Electric Horseman in 1979 and
starring in Honeysuckle Rose the
following year. The latter spawned the
hit "On the Road Again," which became
another one of Nelson's signature songs.
Willie continued to have hits
throughout the early '80s, when he had a
major crossover success in 1982 with a
cover of Elvis Presley's hit "Always on
My Mind." The single spent two weeks at
number one and crossed over to number
five on the pop charts, sending the
album of the same name to number two on
the pop charts as well as
quadruple-platinum status. Over the next
two years, he had hit duet albums with
Merle Haggard (1983's Poncho & Lefty)
and Jennings (1982's WWII and 1983's
Take It to the Limit), while "To All the
Girls I've Loved Before," a duet with
Latin pop star Julio Iglesias, became
another major crossover success in 1984,
peaking at number five on the pop charts
and number one on the singles chart.
Following a string of number one
singles in early 1985, including
"Highwayman," the first single from the
Highwaymen, a supergroup he formed with
Jennings, Johnny Cash, and Kris
Kristofferson, Nelson's popularity
gradually began to erode. A new
generation of artists had captured the
attention of the country audience, which
began to drastically cut into his own
audience. For the remainder of the
decade, he recorded less frequently and
remained on the road; he also continued
to do charity work, most notably Farm
Aid, an annual concert that he founded
in 1985 designed to provide aid to
ailing farmers. While he career was
declining, an old demon began to creep
up on Willie -- the IRS. In November of
1990, he was given a bill for 16.7
million dollars in back taxes. During
the following year, almost all of his
assets -- including several houses,
studios, farms, and various properties
-- were taken away, and to help pay his
bill, he released the double-album The
IRS Tapes: Who'll Buy My Memories?.
Originally released as two separate
albums, the records were marketed
through television commercials, and all
the profits were directed to the IRS. By
1993 -- the year he turned 60 -- his
debts had been paid off, and he
relaunched his recording career with
Across the Borderline, an ambitious
album produced by Don Was and featuring
cameos by Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Paul
Simon, Sinead O'Connor, David Crosby,
and Kris Kristofferson. The record
received strong reviews and became his
first solo album to appear in the pop
charts since 1985.
After the release of Across the
Borderline, Nelson continued to work
steadily, releasing at least one album a
year and touring constantly. In 1993, he
was inducted into the Country Music Hall
of Fame, but by that time, he had
already become a living legend for all
country music fans across the world.
Signing to Island for 1996's Spirit, he
resurfaced two years later with the
critically acclaimed Teatro, produced by
Daniel Lanois. Nelson followed up that
success with the instrumental-oriented
Night and Day a year later; Me and the
Drummer and Milk Cow Blues followed in
2000. The Rainbow Connection, which
featured an eclectic selection of
old-time country favorites, appeared in
spring 2001. |
