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Willie Nelson — A Real Man and His Music
Dallas Morning News
Scene Magazine
August 10, 1975
by Bob St. John

“I live one day at a time.
I dream one dream at a time.
Yesterday’s gone; and tomorrow is blind
And I live one day at a time” — Willie Nelson

You could call it a crowd or an audience.  No matter, really, because the man and his fans are not bound by tags and labels and names that categorize them.  The drifters are there, the denim crowd (real and dyed), the dreamers, the rednecks, the intellectuals who do not have stiff rods for backbones, and the suburbanites who have escaped the backyard tempo of flip-top beers and philosophical martinis.

“Willie!” somebody says, and everybody is picking it up. “Hello, Willie!” And the man, Willie Nelson, smiles and shakes hands which reach for him, and chats briefly as he moves across the floor, between tables.  You see, Willie Nelson is touchable and touches.  He is real.  He has run the gauntlet of life’s deepest emotions and survived.  And his fans, in him, have survived.

Now he is on the stage, talking to members of his group, his band.  Blue lights, piercing, find him through the smoke-covered room with its beer smells, perfume — expensive and cheap.  Now he has his guitar, worn like it’s owner, and the people begin shouting, stomping and cheering.

And he begins.  “Well, it’s a Bloody Mary morning, baby left me without warning, sometime in the night.  So I’m flying down to Houston, with forgetting her the nature of my flight.   As we taxi towards the runway, with the smog and haze reminding me of how I feel.   Just a country boy who’s learning that the pitfalls of the city are extremely real.”

A man in jeans, a cowboy hat, gets up and walks toward the stage and Willie leans down and shakes hands.   A young girl runs up and Willie takes her hand, leans over and she kisses him on the cheek.   “All the night life and the parties, temptations decide the order of the day.  Well, it’s a Bloody Mary morning and I’m leaving baby somewhere in L.A…”

It is a loud, fast, foot-stomping song.  But soon he will do something slower, sad, ballad-like.  He will do them all.  This is the Willie Nelson experience.  On this night he went on at 10 and though the show is supposed to last a couple of hours, he sings and picks until almost 2 a.m.  Willie is like that.  He’s the only entertainer I’ve ever met who has been known to wear out audiences.

The people love it.  So does Willie.  Willie Nelson is not like so many top performers who give the impression they’re doing what they do as a favor to you, after you pay your money.   Many seem to be looking for the quickest, most painless exit from the stage as they look blankly at the same faces in another town, another place.  Willie Nelson enjoys himself.

Willie sings in a strong, clear baritone which can become very mellow and, at times, subtle.  He has a person-to-person style, and his voice strikes chords in you if you have been lonely, happy, deserted, sad or under the compulsion of wanderlust.  Some of his songs are fun, happy, some sad and haunting.  Often when I listen to his lyrics and music I find in them a correlation to a truly good novel.  You can read his song for a good story but, looking deeper, you find something more profound, allegorical.  In one recent album, “Phases and Stages,” he takes a poignant look at the breakup of a marriage, one side of the album being form the woman’s viewpoint and the other from the man’s.  Each is his own way goes through the stages of feeling hopeless and depressed, then becomes philosophical and, finally, rebounds.  There are many different type songs, different eats, in the album, but together they paint a complete picture.

For years Willie was a word-of-mouth legend.  Now, more than anybody, he is the catalyst of the current movement in music, a blending fo pop, country, rock, even some blues.  It has been called “progressive country,” though Willie doesn’t care for that particular designation.

“I hate music labels,” willie was saying as we sat on the sofa of his office in the Willie Nelson Music Co. in Austin.  “A label is just one man’s opinion and that doesn’t make it right.  That’s this…this is that  (he laughs).  Labels put a bind on something, corner it and keep it from branching out.”

Willie was dressed as he often is, wearing a T-shirt, jeans, tennis shoes with no socks.  His hair, shoulder length, was bothering him so he pulled off a piece of recording tape and tied it around his head, Indian style.  Everybody is completely loose in the Willie Nelson Music Co., which publishes some of his music, and there seems to be a great deal of confusion, though it all produces success.  I had the impression you might open a filing cabinet and find a potential hit song scribbled on a piece of paper, or maybe you’d find a piece of pizza.  The office and the people who work for and with Willie reflect him.

One of Willie’s daughters, Lana, works in his office.  When we walked in she jumped up and hugged his neck.   Paul English, behind a desk in another room, is Willie’s drummer and longtime friend.  After they greeted each other warmly, Paul began explaining a life insurance policy to Willie, who was putting on a tape of his new album, “The Red Headed Stranger.”  Between phones ringing, conversations going on from all directions, I caught parts of the album.  I heard enough of it to know he was doing something a little different.

University of Texas athletic director-coach Darrell Royal knows more about country-and-western music than anybody I know.  Friends in the field say he’s a self-made expert.  “Willie stays ahead,” says Royal, a close friend of Willie.  “In recent years people are getting into what they’re calling progressive country.  Willie was doing that 10 years ago.  By the time people get into what he’s doing, he’s already gone on to something else.  Willie stays a few years ahead of everybody.”

An extremely tall blond young lady with sharp features, a long, somewhat bent nose, was sitting in a corner of Willie’s office, which I learned is also an undesignated lounge area.  She was staring at the wall.  Near her a short, portly man was staring at the floor.  While Willie talked over the telephone to his lawyer in new York I went toward them, looked at the woman, who was pretty but deadpan, and said, “Hello, how are you?”  She looked right thorough me, then stared at the wall again. 

When Willie got off the phone, the man got up and started telling Willie his problems, about his ex-wife and children.  Willie listened sympathetically.  I went into another room and Gene McCoslin, who used to manage KNOK radio station in Dallas and now works for Willie, told me the pair were entertainers.  Willie had brought them from Las Vegas and put them on stage in Houston, using his band behind them.  They had flopped and indicated to the band they felt the crowd might not like them.  “Hell,” said English later, “I wasn’t worried about whether they liked them or not.  I was worried about getting killed by irate fans.”

“I still think they are good,” said Willie.  “The timing just wasn’t right.”  Jody Payne, his guitarist, came in and greeted Willie like a long, lost friend.  Later Willie was talking about his group — English, Payne, bass player Bea Spears, Mickey Raphael on the harmonica and Willie’s sister, Bobbie Nelson, on the piano.  “The thing we have going for us is that we like each other,” said Willie.  “We sincerely like each other.”

Word was out.  Willie was in town, at his office.  The place became Austin terminal.  Willie left the door open. 

I watched him.  His face is worn, somewhat craggy and surrounded by brownish-red hair and a beard, salted with white.  Lines around his brown eyes show that he has both cried and laughed a lot.  If possible, his face seems both younger and older than his 42 years. 

“I really do believe you have to suffer and feel things deeply to write about them,” he was saying.  “I’ve got a lot to write about because, well, a lot has happened to me.  Some of the best stuff I’ve written came easiest.  Usually, the harder I work on something the less I’m pleased.  There are no really new ideas.  Anything original is something you do different, maybe saying the same thing in a different way.”

Short years ago Willie Nelson wasn’t as big an entertainer and didn’t seem to get much credit as a writer.  Continually, I find people surprised to learn that Willie wrote this or that old standby.  His song “Funny How Time Slips Away” was recorded by 80 artists, including Bing Crosby.  He has written other classics in the industry such as “Hello Walls,” “Crazy,” “One Day at a Time,” “Night Life,” “The Party’s Over,” “My Own Peculiar way” and “I’ll Walk Alone.”  “Bloody Mary Morning” is one of his recent songs which seems most likely to become a standard. 

His songs have been recorded by the likes of Joan Baez, Frank Sinatra, perry Como, Aretha Franklin, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Lawrence Welk, Stevie Wonder, Ray Price, Harry James, Patsy Cline, Al Green and Eydie Gorme.  The music is adaptable to many styles, many versions, but the definitive recordings of Willie’s song are done by Willie, who understands them best.

“I like all kinds of people, all kinds of crowds,” he continued when I go thim away from all the people.  “I like to see them all laid back and listening to our music.  I do try to be touchable.  A lot of guys hire bodyguards.  This was especially true during the era of the big stars.  But it’s bull.  Nobody needs them. People who come to see and hear you aren’t going to hurt you.  They’re your friends.”

“You know, I don’t think there’s much difference in people.  They’re the same, though maybe in different wrappings.” 

I told him something he already knew, that his cult, his followers, come from all groups.  “I think some of the young people listen and enjoy our kind of music and so do dads and mammas,” he added.  “I hope maybe we can help them find out their parents aren’t so bad and help the parents find out all the kids aren’t Charels Mansons.  (He paused, looked out the back door of his office, which was open.)  Kids are a heckuva lot smarter than we were.  I think they were just born with more sense.”

His wife, Connie, phoned and he talked softly to her.  Willie has three kids — Lana, Billy and Susie — by a previous marriage.  He and Connie, a pretty blond, have been marrried for some five years and have two small children,  Paula and Amy.  “One time we were playing at a place called Cut and Shoot, Texas,” said Willie.  “Connie was a fan.  She and a girl friend came to see us play.  She sat at the band table and I saw her and said, ‘I want her.’  One of the guys went over and got her.  She’s a beautiful woman.”

“Willie and Connie had just gotten back from Hawaii.  “We were just sitting around the house,” explained Willie, “and she asked when we might go to Hawaii.  I said, ‘How about tomorrow?’  We went for a week to get into the sun.  We got burned the first day and it rained the next four.  Rain didn’t matter.  We were too sunburned to get out anyway.  No, I don’t like to plan things.  Most plans don’t work out.  I just like to get up and do things.”

The Nelsons did live on a 44-acre ranch outside Austin.  But, even for Willie, the curious got to be too much.  When they found out where he lived they continually came out — friends, strangers, everybody.  “Some,” he said, “would come by and stay for two days.  So we made another snap decision, to sell the house and move into the city.”

We drove to his new house, on a quiet, residential street lined with trees.  Odd, I though, how you can live in the country and be surrounded and yet find more privacy in the city, crowded with people.  I told him it was a nice house.  “I think I might just stay a couple of days,” I added, and he laughed.

It goes against his grain for Willie to be the superstar that he is becoming.  He had tremendous reviews after playing at the Trouboudour in Los Angeles.  On learning Willie was in town, Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney attended his performance there.  After hearing Willie in New York, critic Loraine Alterman wrote in the New York Times he did “country music that can move even those of us who think we despise it.”

“I don’t want to be a superstar because I don’t like the way they have to live,” said Willie.  “I wouldn’t want to be like, say, an Elvis Presley.  Besides, I’m basically lazy.  I just need enough money to get by, to exist.  I don’t like tours.  You have to be gone too long.  Now we have it down to where we work five, six days a month.  And we like it around here — Austin, Dallas, Houston, places close.  No, I don’t worry about exposure.  Hell, I’m overexposed now.

“People who work all the time, they get to where you dread the next day coming, dread being there.  When I entertain I enjoy it.  I enjoy people and don’t want to work so much that I get caught up in it and forget that.  I also want to live a life, be myself, not somebody else.  I like freedom.”

Once Willie was playing in this place and a big fight started.  People and chairs were crashing everywhere but Willie just kept on playing.  Willie’s cool.  “I tell you how cool he is,” said English.  “We used to travel around in this old bus.  One day we were moving on down this freeway and Willie and some of the guys were playing card in the back.  Suddenly, the universal joint fell out and cut the brake lining.  The driver yelled back he couldn’t stop the bus.  Everybody was in apanic.   ‘What we going to do, Willie’ somebody asked.  Willie never looked up.  ‘Deal,’ he said.”

At Willie’s office that day, a number of things were going on at once, but the big plans were for his annual Fourth of July picnic.  This generally referred to as the “Woodstock” of country music.   It’s an all-day singing and picking session in which some of the top names in the industry visit their friend Willie Nelson.  Two years ago in Dripping Springs they stopped counting the people at 50,000.  Last year in College Station it drew near 100,000, and this year estimates of the number who attended ran as high as 95,000.

For his latest picnic Willie had rented a 500-acre site 30 miles northwest of Austin near the hamlet of Liberty Hill.  He hopes to keep the picnic there.   It ahs plenty of parking room, trees for shade and it’s bisected by the San Gabriel River.  Willie drove a group of us out to the site and, as we were heading toward the soft, rollling hills, Willie was saiyng, “I like all kinds of music.  Just all kinds.  I also play a little golf, and I guess my other pastime is thinking.  I think a lot.”

I remembered a story Royal told about once when they were playing golf in Brownville.  Willie was in the trees and couldn’t get a cart near where his ball had stopped.  He yelled at Royal, on the fairway, to toss him a two-iron.  Royal slung the club.  Willie lost sight of it as it came down through the trees.  It hit him right on the head.  “Willie, you okay”? yelled Royal.  Willie’s voice came out from the trees.  “I don’t know yet.  I might be dead.”

Our drive through the countryside was pleasant.  Bluebonnets carpeted both sides of the raod and we passed through a small town which seemed, as do many small towns in texas, to have stopped in a time long passed.  Willie was raised in such a town, Abbott, which is just off Interstate 35 some 30 miles north of Waco.  I had visited there earlier.

Farm road 1242 cuts under the main highway and runs through what is downtown Abbott, a small, bunched group of buildings, many boarded up and closed.  Chruches seem to be on every corner.  They are far from boarded up.  “See that spot over there,” said Jimmy Bruce, a parttime clerk in the post office.  “Willie used to live in a hosue right over there.  I was a neighbor.  Yeah, he was a pretty good kid.  He comes back here sometimes and plays benefits. 

“When he was here the Hill County sheriff came out and gave them a little trouble.  They were afraid he might attract the wrong kind of crowd.  Some folks around here talk about Willie, but I liked him.  Yes sir, I did.”

Willie was raised by his grandparents after his parents divorced.  The old folks were very religious, the firs and brimstone kind.  His grandfatehr, a blacksmith, died when Willie was six, leavin ghim in the care of his grandmoter, a music teacher.  “Times were hard during the Depression, but we grew our own food and had a cow for milk,” Willie once told me.

Back then, summer nights were still, lazy, with outdoor smells and sounds of crickets and sometimes frogs.  Willie would rest on his bed near a window and listen to revivals and church services at the tabernacle nearby.  “I also did a lot of listening on the radio,” he said.  “I’d catch the Grand Ol’ Opry and the rhythm and blues program from New Orleans.  My granddad had taught me a few chords on the guitar before he died.  So I bought me a $6 guitar and a chord book.  I taught myself to play by putting my fingers on those black dots in the book.  My sister Bobbie was the real musician.  My grandmother gave her piano lessons and I can remember them practicing beside a kerosene lamp.

“The first time I performed in public I was about five.  My grandmother dressed me up in a sailor suit and took me to one of those all-day picnics.  You know, singing and eating and praying, and praying some more.  So I got up to recite this poem.  My nose started bleeding.  There I was reading the poem and holding one side of my nose with my hand.  I think everyone was glad when I sat down.  I know I was.”

Willie and Bobbie would entertain at school.  When he was 12 he joined his first band, a Bohemian polka band, which was formed by his brother-in-law, Bud Fletcher.  Willie played the guitar and sang, Bobbie was on the piano, the high school football coach played the trombone and Willie’s father, a musician who’d come back into town during is travels, the fiddle.  “Bobbie was the only one who was any good,” said Willie.  “We never played the same place twice.  We usually played on a percentage and I remember one night we cleared 81 cents each.”

But Willie had begun to jog down lyrics on scraps of paper, and he also was entertaining at a nearby beer drinking establishment, the Night Owl, managed by a big, robust woman named Margie Lundy.  The original Night Owl burned a few years ago.  The new place, on the same site, is smaller.  Margie has been handling it all herself, since her husband died a few years ago.  “Yessiree, I kept it going, though it’s not easy,” she was saying. 

Traffic in the Willie Nelson Music Co. was winding down.  The blonde entertainer was gone.  As I left I kept thinking:  Willie is there, among people, touchable.  He is somebody, yet has control because inside he is not trying to play a part, to be anybody but himself.  He is one of us.  And Willie is… well, Willie is Willie.

http://www.austinchronicle.com
by:  Tim Stegall

ACL Live at the Moody Theater crams to the rafters with generations of revelers, including University of Texas Longhorns (footballer Earl Campbell, now using a walker), dignitaries (Attorney General Greg Abbott), and all manner of tony individuals. Lots of well-groomed heads bob, the hair almost without fail blonde and of impressive height in the feminine class.

They’re here raising money for the Darrell K Royal Research Fund for Alzheimer’s Disease, dining on what from the mezzanine appears to be prime rib, and waiting on the evening’s musical entertainment. The event comes titled as “Ben Willie Darrell Present the 4th & Goal Gala.” Austin golf great Ben Crenshaw and late football legend Darrell Royal sandwich that marquee’s middle-name headliner, who’s likely much of the reason $1 million will be raised here this evening. Everyone knows Willie Nelson and Coach Royal were close friends.

When I last encountered Willie Nelson for this paper (see “Twisted Williemania,” Feb. 9, 1996), it was a transitional time in the local country singer’s career. He was past his IRS troubles from earlier in the decade, but declining record sales prompted Columbia Records – his label since 1975′s Red Headed Stranger LP – to release him. Never mind that he was still packing houses live. We sat aboard that era’s iteration of the famed Honeysuckle Rose, his tour bus, and watched a Beatlemania-like scene unfold outside Buffalo Billiards on Sixth Street. We wondered aloud if Columbia’s bean counters had been to a show and seen what we were witnessing.

Tuesday, two weeks before his 80th birthday on April 30, Nelson’s 61st studio album – Let’s Face the Music and Dance – arrives on Sony Legacy.

“Which is Columbia in a roundabout way,” notes the singer on the 2013 edition of the Honeysuckle Rose.

What changed?

“I think they finally bought a ticket,” he laughs heartily across the kitchen table from me. “You’d think they’d catch a show every now and then!”

After his Moody performance, Willie’s wife Annie has arranged with the DKR PR to bring myself and a reporter from CBS News backstage. Walked onto the bus by the couple themselves, we’re welcomed into a clean, well-lit, and homey vehicle that runs on bio-diesel. Unlike in 1996, Bruce Springsteen isn’t walking out and greeting me as I climb aboard.

In fact, there are no hangers-on for Willie to shush as we talk, just longtime drummer/best friend Paul English (the subject of Willie’s “Me and Paul”) and pianist sister Bobbie Nelson (revisit “Sister Bobbie,” Jan. 18, 2008). The air definitely smells herbal, but not smoky – it could be air freshener for all we know. Willie still drinks strong post-show coffee, a silver laptop half-closed on the table between us.

The show itself differs from 1996, as well. Willie Nelson & Family constituted a sprawling outfit back then, with two drummers and as many guitar players, not counting Willie himself. They were loud, raucous, and powerful, bordering on a rock & roll version of Texan honky-tonk, taking in elements of blues and jazz. In 2013, Nashville guitar great Grady Martin and guitarist Jody Payne are gone, deceased and retired, respectively. And English’s full kit now strips down to a snare and brushes, with younger brother Billy on percussion. It’s a smaller band.

“It might be,” nods Willie. “We had a real tall guitar player out there, though. He makes it look like there might be more of us!”

“Nah,” snorts Ray Benson when asked if he’s joined the Family. “I had a night off [from Asleep at the Wheel], so I sat in. It’s easy – Willie plays all the leads.”

Willie’s son Lukas sometimes mans the electric guitar for his dad, while on bass, local rockabilly thumper Kevin Smith of High Noon fame got called in “about a year-and-a-half ago” by his own account – after the passing of longtime Family bassist Bee Spears. Still in the Family: Paul English, Bobbie Nelson, and Mickey Raphael’s idiosyncratic harmonica.

Raphael can thank the evening’s honoree for his intro to Willie. Darrell Royal’s widow, Edith, notes early in the evening at the Moody that an ASCAP executive introduced the Royals to a young Raphael prior to one of the frequent “pickin’ parties” the football giant hosted for musicians he admired.

Edith Royal: “He said, ‘I’ve got this harmonica player from over in Oak Cliff, and he’s about 15 years old. He’s just great. Can I bring him over? I want Willie to hear him play.’

“So [Raphael] brought his harmonica over – he was just a kid! [Willie] hired him right then. Been with Willie ever since. I said, ‘Mickey, I’ll introduce you to Willie if you’ll promise me you’ll never take up any of his bad habits.’ He said, ‘I promise.’ I said, ‘Now, you can try some of them, if you want to. But don’t take up any of them!’

“He’s a pretty neat kid. He checks in with me nearly every time they’re in town. And boy, he’s added to that band!”

Indeed. Mickey Raphael’s harp is as much Willie’s sonic signature as Willie’s own singing or guitar work.

With a tighter-knit group and a scaled-down presentation, Willie Nelson & Family 2013 are more dynamic, differing from the old power-blast. Bobbie Nelson appears to not miss it.

“We’ve lost some of our musicians, of course,” she says. “And there’s some music that doesn’t really require a lot. If you play freer with musicians, you don’t need a lot of extra things. You can get some feeling, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

She pauses, then smiles over her post-show glass of red wine. “We just love to play.”

Play they do, across a set sometimes familiar, sometimes not. Tonight might be the first time anyone’s heard Willie & Family not kick off with their famed boogie through Johnny Bush’s “Whiskey River.” It’s second in tonight’s set, a gateway into familiar medleys of early-Nashville song-mill hits (“Night Life,” “Crazy,” “Funny How Time Slips Away”), the Seventies heyday (“Good Hearted Woman,” “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,” “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain”), and more recent triumphs (“Beer for My Horses,” his hit duet with Toby Keith recast as an audience sing-along). Then it’s an easy ride into some Hank Williams standards and a rousing, get-on-your-feet-and-clap gospel finish, with an appearance from daughter Amy. At 90 minutes, it’s compact, efficient, and typically satisfying.

The Family, save for Mickey Raphael, doesn’t play on last year’s acclaimed Heroes, the latest in a list of duet albums lengthy enough for a separate discography. Singing partners included Merle Haggard, Snoop Dogg, Kris Kristofferson, Sheryl Crow, Ray Price, Billy Joe Shaver, and several tracks with son Lukas. What makes Heroes unique among Willie’s duet collections is that it’s the first set of (mostly) Willie Nelson originals in a good long while.

“Probably,” he acknowledges. “We do a lot of covers.”

Let’s say you do interpretations.

Willie laughs. “Well, I do my version of things.”

You’re in a league with Sinatra – your interpretations brand a song uniquely.

“I just like singing the good songs. Whether they’re country or pop, it don’t matter. If I know it, I’d like to sing it.”

Which explains the latest disc, this time featuring the Family. Let’s Face the Music and Dance, a set of dance hall standards, ranges from Irving Berlin (the title track) to Spade Cooley (“Shame on You”) and seminal Willie influence Django Reinhardt (“Nuages”). There’s even a romp through Carl Perkins’ rockabilly classic “Matchbox.” Previously, Willie had a hit duet with Leon Russell on Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel.”

“Elvis and Carl?” repeats Willie. “All them guys out of Memphis that came through [Sun Records] and kicked up a lot of dust for awhile? Yeah, I was paying attention. Carl Perkins – I liked ‘Matchbox’! He and I recorded down in my studio one time. He was a good artist.”

You’ve always had a little boogie in what you’re doing.

“Sister Bobbie and I grew up playing boogie woogie and gospel and all those together. It’s a combination of a lot of different kinds of music.”

That combination has served Willie Hugh Nelson well since his first professional gigs as a 10-year-old guitarist in John Rejcek’s band, playing Czech dances in his native Abbott. That was 1943. Seventy years later, Willie and Bobbie and Family make a lot more than the $6 take-home he enjoyed then. In an 80th year crammed with commemorative projects and events, Willie Nelson’s not looking at his watch.

“We’re still playin’ pretty good, and the crowds are good,” he shrugs. “Really no need to quit while we’re still having fun.”

Does 80 feel like a milestone?

“No more than 50, or 70, or 21. I thought when I made 21 it was a big deal! I thought I was lucky, after 21. Anything over that, as they say, was gravy. Eighty? It’s just another number, I guess.”

Does Darrell Royal’s passing from Alzheimer’s or mortality in general ever make you think?

“I’ve been so lucky/fortunate/blessed, all those words,” acknowledges Nelson. “I know a lot of people didn’t reach 80, and I haven’t got there yet. I’ve been lucky/fortunate/blessed to be able to still be doing what I’m doing and what I think I came here to do.”

“It’s wonderful how we have spent our lives,” agrees Bobbie Nelson. “I think we should never stop doing things, learning to do new things, and playing. I don’t need to quit. I’d rather do some more, too. The band has got a new album, and Willie used the band for the next album. It’s really … nice.

“I think country music is soulful music,” she adds. “I don’t think you can listen to country music without hearing the soul of the people. It’s about people, the lives of soulful people. It’s music that’s very similar to the old soul music. Country is about real people, happiness and sadness both.”

Harlan Howard said, “Country music is three chords and the truth.”

“There’s nothing like playing something from your very soul and your heart,” she nods. “A lot of musicians don’t get to do that.”

Read the entire article, and see photos, at The Austin Chronicle’s Website.

Country Song Roundup
February 1969
by: Judy Myers

When I was given the assignment to do a story on Willie Nelson, I couldn’t have been more pleased.  You see, I’m a big Willie Nelson fan!  Not only do I appreciate his song writing, but he’s one of the best song writers ever.  Proof can be found in the listening to such songs as “It Should Be Easier Now” (one of my favorites), “Night Life”, “Crazy”, “Funny How TIme Slips Away”, “Hello Walls”, and I could go on and on… I really “dig” Willie’s singing.  I’d just about rather hear Willie sing than anyone I can think of.

The day finally arrived and I met Willie at his office for the interview.  His manner was charming and relaxed.

“Where do I start?” Willie asked.

“Why not start at the beginning”, I said.

“In the beginning I created”… he began laughing.  Then he got serious and there followed a series of reminiscence that had me sitting on the edge of my chair, listening to Willie, who has a mind that works like a human tape recorder.  He had almost total recall of everything.  It was one of the most enchanting hours I’ve ever spent.  Now, I want to share it with you…

“I was born in Abbott, Texas, on April 30, 1933.  That’s in West Texas.  My grandparents raised us, and my daddy (Ira) was a blacksmith.  My grandparents taught music that they had learned by studying a correspondence course.  My father got me a guitar when I was about four or five years old, and I learned to play.  I guess I started writing songs when I was about eight or a little younger.  My first song was pretty bad!  My mother still has it, along with a lot of others in a scrapbook, and she says one day she’s going to publish it.  I’d sure like to have that book, but she won’t give it up.”

“When I was thirteen, I started playing clubs with my sister, Bobbie.  She played the piano, my brother-in-law was our manager and he played a broomstick.  You  know, a broomstick with a piece of shingle attached that he could beat back and forth to create a little rhythm.  He later took up playing the bass, but mostly he just hit it and swung it around.  My father played a little fiddle and rhythm guitar and I played lead guitar.  We were called “Bud Fletcher and His Texans.”  Bud is my brother-in-law.

We had a sign-on show on KHBR Radio in Hillsboro, Texas, every Sunday morning.  We’d come dragging in after playing and driving all night, making us late most of the time.  We were followed by preachers, and most of the time they directed their preaching right at us.  You know, they thought we were wicked hillbillys.

“I was a relief telephone operator there in Abbott.  We had a central switchboard and the woman who ran it liked to go out on Saturday nights so my sister or I would take over for her.  My voice was changing then and I guess they thought I was a girl.  They didn’t know I was a boy, but I sure knew everything that was going on in the county.

“My first real job was that of a tree trimmer.  We went around cutting branches away from the high tension wires.  Once my buddy was about forty feet up and needed a rope, so I took it up the tree.  Then, rather than climb down, I decided to go down the rope.  I got about four feet down and got my finger hung up.  I couldn’t go up or down, and I was too far from my friend for him to help, so the only choice I had was to have him cut the rope.  I fell down through those high tension wires and branches and I was able to get up and walk away, but I never went back to that job.

“Then I worked in a pawn shop, went into the Air Force, got out, worked as a bouncer in one of the roughest joints in Texas, (that didn’t last long, there was a fight every night, and I don’t like fights).  I got married, worked as a parts man in an auto house, trimmed trees again, formed a band and started pickin’ again, made saddles, worked in the oil fields in Texas, got married for the second time, and worked for a short time at a radio station in San Antonio.

“I went to work for Johnny Bush.  He had a band and I played lead guitar.  I asked him if I could sing, so he did let me sing some, but then he asked me to just play guitar,  I don’t think he liked my singing.  I managed him for awhile.

“We moved to Pleasanton, Texas, where I saw an ad for a D.J. job on KBOP Radio.  I had two kids by then, Lana and Susie.  I’d never worked as a D.J., but I wanted that job.  I went to see Dr. Ben Parker, who incidentally did more to help me than almost anyone.  He asked me if I had any experience and I told him that I had.  He then asked me if I was familiar with the board there.  I said, “That’s a Gates board isn’t it?  Anybody could see it was a Gates board, it was written right across it.  I told him I didn’t know that board as I’d worked on an RCA Victor Board.  I remember that’s what they had at the other station.  He’d have to show me how to use that one because they looked different.

“My test was to do fifteen minutes of news…live…the first time I’d ever been on the air as an announcer.  Then he gave me a commerical to do.  It was for the Pleasanton Pharmacy.  It went like this…’The Pleasanton Pharmacy Pharmaceutical department accurately and preciseley fills your doctor’s perscription,’ and after I got through with that, he knew I’d never done radio work.  It was the hardest commercial I’ve ever done.  He gave me the job anyway.  Then he worked with me to show me all arbout radio work.

“Dr. Ben Parker really helped me a lot.

“I worked at KBOP for awhile, and then got itchy feet.  I went to Denton, Texas where I got a job as salesman for KDNT radio.  I wasn’t on the air so I didn’t like that much.  I went on to Ft. Worth, where I worked with Uncle Hank Cragg on station KCUL.  I learned some more about radio work from him.  From there I went to KCNC and Western Express.  I was still working nights pickin’.

“Well, I got itchy feet again.  I decided we should go to San Diego.  The only catch was, we didn’t have any money, and no car.  I saw an ad in the paper where you could drive cars to different places.  I went to see them and asked about taking a car to San Diego. They said that they had a car to go that way, and they would pay for the oil… but they had to know that I could get the car there.  They said they would have to see at least $50.00.  Well, I was down to my last $25.00, and that was that.  However, i told them I’d go get the money as I didn’t have it on me.  I went out and found a friend and asked him to let me have $50.00.  I didn’t want to borrow it, I explained about the car.  I just wanted to show it.  He let me have the money and I took it to show, and they let me have the car.  I gave the money back to my friend, but we still had to get to San Diego, buy gas and food, and only had $25.00 to do it on.  Well, we made it, but I won’t go into details about how it was done.”  He gave a sort of half chuckle.

“Well, when we got to San Diego, I couldn’t find any work.  My wife got a job, and I didn’t like that much, her working and me not working.  So I decided to go to my mother’s in Portland, Oregon and see what I could get there.  I planned to get something going and then send for my family.  So I started hitchhiking with $10.00 and a suitcase.  That was some trip.  We could get a whole story just out of the details of that trip alone.  I’ll just tell one thing that happened along the way.  I got to Orange, California.  It was night time and I was tired and broke, and awfully tired of carrying that ole’ suitcase.  I found a country music nightclub, went in, and found I had just enough money for one beer.  By buying that beer and making it last all night, I was able to stay there without getting thrown out.  When the band was packing up, I asked if they knew of anybody who might give me a job, but they didn’t.  One old boy told me to stick around for a few mintues and he would make some phone calls for me and maybe find something.  I waited and he did make the calls, but with no luck.  Then, I had an idea.  This old suitcase was getting heaver every mile, and I thought I could trust him, so I gave him my mother’s address in Portland, and asked him if he would send the suitcase to me there.  Well, I never did see that suitcase again!

“I made Portland eventually.  I got a job with KVAN in Vancouver, Washington, just across the river.  I also had my own weekly t.v. show.

” I sent for my family to join me, and things were going pretty well in Portland but…..I got restless.

“On the move again, we headed for Springfield, Mo.  On the way, we went through Denver, Colorado, and I got a job pickin’ there, at a place called “Heart’s Corner.”  The guy that ran the place rented a guitar for me, and I guess I stayed there about six weeks.  Then we were on the move again.  When we got to Springfield, I ran into Billy Walker. He was working the Ozark Jubilee at the time.  His wife and my wife had been friends in Texas, so they invited us to stay with them for a few days.  Billy even set up an interview for me with Si SImon, who was running the Jubilee.  Si didn’t seem to think I was too good, so I took the only job I could find, dishwashing.

I wasn’t too happy as a dishwasher, so I took my family and headed south to Waco, Texas.  Right after that, we moved to Ft. Worth and I quit the music business for a year.  During that time, I sold just about everything, door to door.  They even made me manager for Ameriana Encyclopedia.

“But I wanted to pick.  I went back to Waco, then to Houston.  I had, in the meantime, written “Family Bible” for Frankie Miller, who was recording on Starday, but Don Pierce wouldn’t let him record it.  When in Houston, I ran into a guy I’d known before, Paul Buskirk. I was pretty broke so I decided to sell the song, “Family Bible”  Paul, Walt Breelin and Claude Grey split it three ways and gave me $25.00 for it.

“Looking for work, I went to the Esquire Club where Larry Butler was the head of the band.  I asked him for a job, but he said that he didn’t need anyone at that time.  I aksed him if he would buy some of my songs then, for $10.00 each.  I sang him about ten or twelve of my best ones, including “Mr. Record Man”, “Crazy”, “Nightlife” and “What a Way to Live.”  He wouldn’t buy my songs, not because they weren’t good he said, but because they were too good, and if I needed money that bad, he would loan me some, and he did.  That kept me from being compeltely broke.

“Paul Buskirk had a recording studio and he offered me a job teaching guitar.  Well, I didn’t know how to read music, but he said that was okay, he’d teach me.  I got my first lesson on Wednesday, and gave my first lesson on Monday.  I always managed to stay one lesson ahead of the students.  They didn’t know any better, since I did know how to play, I didn’t know how to read music, that’s all, but I learned that.

“I finally went to work for Larry Butler pickin’ in the evenings, adn I worked the Sunday morning sign-on DJ show at KRCT radio, which now has the call letters, KIKK.  Leroy Gloger was the manager there, and he fired me.  That hurt my ego, and I left town.

“I took my family to Waco, and I headed for Nashville, and the first person I ran into there was my old buddy, Billy Walker.  I sent for my family, and brought them to Nashville.  Billy took me to Starday records and introduced me to Tommy Hill.  I sang some of my songs for him, and he told me that he’d set up a recording and writer’s contract for me, but Don Pierce turned us both down.

“One night when a bunch of us were jammin’ in Tootsie’s, Hank Cochran heard me and took me to Pamper music, where I signed an exclusive writer’s contract.  Faron young had heard me sing “Hello Walls” at Tootsie’s and told me that he wanted to record it.  I was working on the road with Bobby Sykes, playing lead guitar and Faron, who was on the show that night, asked me to sing the song again so that he could learn it.  I also sang “Coungratulations” that same night, and the next week, he recorded both of them, back to back.

“I moved my family into a trailer house, and I had three kids by then.  I found out later that it was the very same trailer Hank Cochran and his wife and three children lived in when they first came to Nashville.  It was green and ugly and the rent was $25.00 a week, and it was worth about $3.00, but they were always there to collect the rent eery rent day.

“I heard that Ray Price needed a man to play bass and front his band.  I didn’t know how to play bass, but I told Ray I did, got the job, then went out and got a bass and learned real quick. If he ever knew I didn’t know how to play, he was kind enough not to mention it.  I worked for Ray for a year.

“Crazy” was doing real good then, and Billy had recorded “Funny How Time Slips Away”, I wrote it for him, to follow “Thank You For Calling”.  Joe Allison signed me to Liberty Records, and produced an album and single for me.  The album was “And Then I Wrote” and the single was “Mr. Record Man.”  I did two albums on Liberty.

“My marriage broke up about that time and I moved to Texas.  I met and married my present wife, Shirley there.  Incidentally, she was a regular on the Ozark Jubilee the time I went through Springfield, but we didn’t know each other then.

“I stayed in Ft. Worth until 1963.  After that I went to California to run the office for Pamper Music.  I didn’t like that because I wasn’t pickin’, just running the office.  So we came back to Tennessee, and bought a farm at Ridgetop, just out of Nashville.

“I had been on Monument Records in the meantime, and had a record with them, but in 1964 I signed with RCA Victor.  My first release for them was “Pretty Paper.”  I’ve had six albums on Victor, and my latest single is, “Johnny One time”, written by Dallas Frasier.  I am really sold on the song, and I think we’ve got the most commercial sound on it of any of my other records.  Were hoping that this one will make it, but if it doesn’t, well, maybe next time.

“That’s it, up to now.  I remember some things I left out, but let’s save them for next time.”

That’s Wille’s story, and the hour I spent getting it was one of the most interesting I’ve had in a long time.  there’s nothing left for me to add, it’s all been said.