Archive for the ‘Interviews’ Category

“My First Interview With Willie,” — Dave Dalton

Friday, March 1st, 2024

John Sprong’s, “One By Willie”, with Booker T. Jones

Wednesday, February 14th, 2024

www.TexasMonthly.com
by: John Sprong

One By Willie: S5 E3: Booker T Jones on “Georgia On My Mind” on Apple Podcasts

To many Willie fans, both the casual and hardcore, his 1978 album Stardust is the best he ever made, and the reverence is well-earned. It’s the biggest-selling record of his career, spending a full ten years on Billboard’s country albums chart. It’s also an undeniably beautiful collection of songs and performances, quiet and contemplative and marked by Willie’s unmistakable affection for the music and his band. Simply put, it’s a perfect record. For all those reasons, it’s easy to forget that Stardust was the most radical move he ever made.

Think back to the year it came out. On the strength of such albums as Red Headed StrangerWanted! The Outlaws, and Waylon and Willie, Willie was at the forefront of the outlaw country revolution, and that’s what his label, Columbia Records, wanted to sell more of. But Willie had his own idea. He wanted to record a collection of standards from the American Songbook, and he planned to do so with R&B legend Booker T. Jones, one-time leader of the house band at Stax Records, adding in his Hammond B-3 organ and producing. Oh, and Willie saw no need to record it in a proper studio. He believed these songs he’d grown up loving as a kid would be better served by a more intimate setting; he didn’t want to capture them, he wanted to caress them. Thus was born Stardust.

Read article here.

Another “One With Willie,” by John Sprong

Wednesday, February 7th, 2024

Willie Nelson in Tulsa

Wednesday, February 7th, 2024

A new “One With Willie”, by John Spong with Nick Offerman

Friday, February 2nd, 2024

Willie Nelson talks about genesis of Farm Aid (1990 interview)

Monday, July 31st, 2023

40 Years on the Road with Willie – Bus Driver Tony Sizemore talks to People Magazine (July 2023)

Wednesday, July 26th, 2023

www.Peoplemagazine.com
by Brianne Tracy – July 25th 2023.

The music legend’s bus driver Tony Sizemore has done it all during his 40 years of touring him, from meeting U.S. presidents to being locked up.

In 2019, Willie Nelson threw a retirement party for his longtime bus driver, Tony Sizemore. But before Sizemore could settle into a life of leisure, Nelson asked if he could stay on for just one more big show he had coming up in Tennessee.

One show quickly turned into dozens more, and four years later, Sizemore, 75, is still driving around the country legend — who turned 90 in April — on tour.

“Willie is just the kind of person that you can’t get away from him,” Sizemore tells PEOPLE with a laugh. “You talk about quitting, and he’ll say, ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute. Whoa, whoa. I’m 90. What are you talking about quitting for?’ He won’t let me quit, so I guess I just keep working.”

A Marine Corps veteran, Sizemore first started driving for Nelson in 1983, after working for the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Queen, Foreigner, Tom Petty, Peter Frampton, Marvin Gaye, Rick James, Jackson Browne, Kenny Rogers, The Oak Ridge Boys and Jimmy Buffett. At the time, Nelson was looking for a temporary driver who knew how to work a manual shift bus.

“They brought me out to drive that bus for what I thought would be a couple of weeks, and after a couple weeks I said, ‘Well, did you find anybody you like?’ Willie said, ‘Oh yeah, we like what we got. We’re good right now,'” Sizemore recalls. “So that was it. I’m still here.”

In his 40 years on the road with Nelson, Sizemore, a St. Cloud, Florida, resident, has had countless once in a lifetime experiences, like meeting everyone from Dolly Parton to U.S. presidents.

“I graduated from a high school in small town Indiana that had 100 kids,” he says. “My class had seven boys and 20 girls. So, meeting the president was not on my priority list when I was in high school. When I was a kid, Mamie Eisenhower came through our town on the train, and my mother took us young kids out and waved at her. I figured that was about as close as I’d ever get to anybody.”

He’s also experienced everything from being locked up with Nelson for drug possession to witnessing the star autograph babies’ heads. “You can’t believe the stories,” he says.

Through it all though, it’s the moments with Nelson that Sizemore cherishes most.

“He’ll make a cup of coffee, and he’ll say, ‘Here, I’ll split this with you,'” he says. “He’ll pour half of his coffee in my cup. Sometimes I’m almost at the hotel when he does it, but I just act like I’m going to drink it anyway.”

“I turn 76 in September, and I still get happy talking about Willie,” he continues. “If I quit today and somebody else called me up, I probably would not go out. Willie’s the only person I want to work for, and he has been for years. It’s just because he’s such a nice man.”

Here are Nelson’s road rules, as told by Sizemore.

Treat Everyone Equal.

We’ve had presidents, ex-presidents, want-to-be presidents, wrestlers, football players and movie stars on the bus, and Willie treats everybody the same.

We were playing some night shows in New York, and we parked in New Jersey. I went to the bus one day and Willie was sitting on the bus with this guy, I think he called him Louie. He said, “Hey, Tony, this is Louie. He lives in a box around the street there.” They were having coffee. We got ready to go and he said, “Well, I’ll see you later, Louie.” We went to the city and did our show, and then at midnight, probably, we started back out of the city and Willie said, “Tony, if you can find a donut shop, pick me up a couple dozen donuts.” Well, I’ve never heard Willie say that. I said, “You’ve got a donut thing going on?” He said, “No. Louie’s coming back tomorrow to have coffee, and he said he’s going to bring a couple of his friends.” The next day, Louie did come back with a couple of his friends. So, everybody’s the same to Willie. And I found the donuts. If Willie says, “I want a donut,” I get a donut.

Dolly Parton is my all time favorite guest who has been on Willie’s bus. But I’ve had so many of them.

Years ago, we used to play Universal Studios in California for two weeks at a time. Every night Angie Dickinson would come to the show, and every night before she left the show, she’d come around and hug everybody’s neck and take care of everybody for being so kind to her. She always stuck out to me.

I took Melissa Etheridge in one time and introduced Willie to her. I met her at a truck stop one night, and she said, “Could I meet Willie?” I said, “Sure.” I said, “Just a minute,” and I went in and told Willie at 2 a.m., “Melissa Etheridge, she plays a really mean 12-string guitar and is a bluesy singer.” And he said, “Oh, bring her in.” I brought her in, and they talked for a few minutes, and he said, “Do you have any of your music I could get from you I could listen to?” She came out of the bus and she told her guys, “Tear that bus apart to find him a CD.” She hugged my neck and said, “Wow, Willie Nelson wants my music.”

Always Ask Annie.

Willie’s wife [Annie D’Angelo], if I need something, it’s on my chair the next day. If I mention, “Oh, I lost my flashlight the other night,” the next day there will be one on my seat. She’s my best helper when I break down. If I have a problem, I want Annie helping me. She knows tools. She’s better than any driver I’ve ever had, because she doesn’t mind getting dirty and she’ll help you if she can.

Everybody’s Family.

It’s Willie Nelson and Family, and he really means Willie Nelson and Family. My son is 39, and he grew up with Willie. Every summer he’d ride the bus with me and meet all the entertainers. They’d always give him a little job on stage like setting up the water when he was little. As he got bigger, he’d move carts and things.

If Willie Can’t Get You Out of Jail, He’ll Get in With You.

I’ve been busted with Willie a couple of times. I don’t smoke, but they put us in jail in Sierra Blanca, which is about 80 miles outside of El Paso. Coming across I-10, they smelled pot in the bus and they arrested us and they put us in the holding cell, and Willie started singing, “Nobody knows the trouble I’m in.”

We’ve been arrested a few times for pot over the years. In Louisiana, they got us. This police officer, the last thing he told us was, “Don’t worry Mr. Nelson, we’ll keep this off the news.” He gave everybody a ticket in the bus and put our ages on it. My son was in the Marine Corps in Al-Fallujah, Iraq, at the time, and his friends were on the internet, and at the bottom of the screen it scrolled across, “Willie Nelson’s been busted,” and it told all our ages and names. One of the guys said, “Is this your dad?” He said, “Well, yes it is.” So he called me from the company office and asked me if I was OK. I said, “Yes, I’m OK, son. I’m not even in Austin yet and it’s already got to Iraq.”

Willie told me one time, he said, “If I can’t get you out of jail, I’ll get in with you.” If you go with Willie, you get out fast.

Take Care of Trigger.

Willie’s guitar, Trigger, can be sitting in the middle of the floor, and people — great entertainers, great guitarists — will walk around that guitar and look at it. They won’t pick it up unless Willie tells them to. It’s kind of funny to see that.

We played for Robert Redford at the Kennedy Center Awards [in 2005]. Every time I’d go through Secret Service, I’d take Trigger out of the case, show it to them, and then set it up for Willie. When we got ready to walk back out, I’d take Trigger with me, and this Secret Service guy said, “Why don’t you just leave that guitar in here?” I said, “Well, you don’t leave the President by himself, do you?” We guard Trigger with our lives. I’ve got a safe at my house that I bought just for Trigger. If Trigger’s in my bus, I take Trigger out and put it in that safe. I don’t want to be known as the guy that lost Trigger.

Willie says when Trigger quits, he quits.

Laughter Makes Life Go Round.

My bunk used to be above Willie’s sister Bobbie’s (she died in 2022), and there used to be a space in the corner of the bunk where we had an air conditioner running up and down it. After we remodeled the bus, we took that out, and that little corner was open. I got in the bunk and pulled my glasses off, put them in the corner, and went to sleep. At about 4 a.m., it was my turn to drive, but when I got up, I couldn’t find my glasses. I said, “Oh no.”

I thought, “Shoot, my glasses must be in Bobbie’s bunk.” Bobbie was asleep. I asked Willie’s daughter Lana, “Lana, could you check over there and see if my glasses are in Bobbie’s bunk?” She said, “Well, I won’t ask any questions, but I’ll look.” Bobbie woke up and she said, “Tony lost his glasses in your bunk, Bobbie.” She said, “Well, he could have got in here and looked for them.”

Later on that day we were parked and Lana said, “Well, Dad, I guess I might as well just tell you. Tony lost his glasses in Aunt Bobbie’s bunk last night.” He said, “I thought there was something going on.” Bobbie said, “Don’t you guys worry about it.”

They all have a great sense of humor. Willie has the best. He’s got a million jokes, which he’ll tell me in the middle of the night.

Fans Come First.

Everybody thinks marijuana is Willie’s drug of choice, but the audience is. I said one time that you can get drunk and miss a show, that’s OK. But if he catches you being rude to one of his fans, then that’s a no-no.

Willie used to sign autographs for three or four hours every night after the show. He’d sign every autograph there and take pictures. He has this uncanny ability for that one moment he’s talking to that person where he looks them right dead in the eyes. Older people and younger people both will walk off saying, “Wow, he talked to me.”

One time we were in Indianapolis, and we were parked on grass. These buses don’t like grass when it rains, and I could see the rain coming. Whenever he’d sign autographs, I’d always get the older people and the handicapped people up and say, “I’m with Willie, let me walk you up to the front of the line.” He had a big line of people, so I got this lady who was pushing another lady in a wheelchair and brought them to the front. The lady said, “Thanks. This is my mother, and she’s 100 years old.” I’m still thinking it’s going to rain, so I said, “Well, let’s hurry. We don’t have much time.” The old lady shook her fist at me! I said, “No, no! I mean it’s going to rain.”

When we got there, Willie squatted down with them and took pictures. As they left, the old lady waved at me and told me goodbye. I have so many fun memories over the years, and I’ve even seen Willie sign babies’ heads.

Once, some kid took a real thick piece of leather and tooled it. He put wrinkles in it and then he painted it. It was the most beautiful picture I’ve seen of Willie yet. The tooling, the wrinkles, and everything about it was just beautiful. Well, he gave it to me and said, “I know I can’t give this to him, but would you give this to Willie?” I said, “Yes, I will. When I get time, I will.”

About 3 a.m. I stopped, and I got fuel, and I said, “Oh, Willie, here’s a picture this kid asked me to give you.” I took it back to Willie and Willie said, “Well, this is really nice. Let me use your phone.” He called this kid, because the kid’s number was on the back of it. This kid said, “Willie Nelson! Willie Nelson!” I said, “Willie, you’ve just gotten this kid in a lot of trouble.” He said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Well, tomorrow he’s going to go to work and tell everybody you called him at 3 a.m., and you know what they’re going to say. They’re going to call him a liar.” He said, “Oh yeah. Well, here, take a picture of me holding this up and send it to the kid.” So I did. The kid wrote me the nicest thank you and said, “Thank you so much for doing that. I’ll treasure this picture and that phone call for the rest of my life.”

— with Joyce Sellers and 

2 others.

“One By Willie”, with Ray Benson

Tuesday, July 4th, 2023

www.texasmonthly.com
by: John Sprong

Ray Benson on Bob Wills, Cindy Walker, and Willie Nelson’s Version of “Going Away Party

The Grammy-winning founder of Asleep at the Wheel on fifty years of friendship with Willie, with cameos by George Gershwin, Floyd Tillman, and Robert Duvall.

Ray Benson was the gangly leader of an unlikely band of long-haired, western swing revivalists based, of all places, in the California Bay Area when he met Willie Nelson in the early seventies. In those years, big band country-jazz fusion was an all-but-forgotten style to much of America, though not to Willie.

Like Benson, he’d grown up idolizing and emulating the sound’s founding father, Bob Wills, albeit twenty years earlier, in the thirties and forties. The two true believers quickly bonded, and in 1973, Willie advised Benson that his band, Asleep at the Wheel, could find a larger, more reliable audience if it moved to Austin, backing up his suggestion with a promise of show-opening slots at his own gigs. Soon thereafter, Benson and the Wheel made the move, kicking off fifty years of tight friendship and wildly productive musical collaboration.

On this week’s One by Willie, Benson focuses on one of his and Willie’s finest moments together, a cover of the 1974 Wills classic, “Goin’ Away Party.” Willie and Benson’s version was the closing track on the Wheel’s Grammy-winning 1999 album, Ride With Bob: A Tribute to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, and after describing how they came to record it, Benson goes on to detail the even more impressive backstory to the song. It was written for Wills by the great Cindy Walker, the country songwriter from Mexia who composed dozens of the swing and singing-cowboy songs that Willie grew up on. With well-considered and experienced authority, Benson calls Walker one of the single greatest influences on Willie’s own creations.

Listen to interview, read transcript here.

We’ve created an Apple Music playlist for this series that we’ll add to with each episode we publish. And if you like the show, please subscribe and drop us a rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

John Spong’s, “One By Willie”, with Micah Nelson

Monday, June 19th, 2023

Willie Nelson’s Son Micah on Trigger, Roger Miller, and “Still Is Still Moving to Me”

www.TexasMonthly.Com
by: John Spong

On this special Father’s Day episode, Micah, now a visual artist and leader of his own band, Particle Kid, discusses the indomitable energy in “Still Is Still Moving to Me” and how much fun he has playing it each night as the rhythm-guitar picker in his dad’s Family band. From there he goes on to describe the drive to constantly be creating that he inherited from his dad, one of his dad’s favorite Roger Miller stories, and the magic of discovering obscure songs Willie wrote and recorded decades before Micah was even born.

We’ve created an Apple Music playlist for this series that we’ll add to with each episode we publish. And if you like the show, please subscribe and drop us a rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

One by Willie is produced and engineered by Brian Standefer, with audio editing by Jackie Ibarra and production by Patrick Michels. Our executive producer is Megan Creydt. Graphic design is by Emily Kimbro and Victoria Millner.

Micah Nelson was two months from turning three years old when his dad released Across the Borderline in March 1993. Even hard-core fans may not remember that Willie was at a crossroads back then. It had been almost four years since he’d had a number one country single, and his label, Columbia Records, was talking about reclassifying him as a “legacy act.” Across the Borderline changed that, and, in a very real way, its closing track—the high-octane, Trigger-heavy anthem “Still Is Still Moving to Me”—powered the living legend phase of Willie’s career that he’s been riding ever since.

Listen to interview and read transcript and article at Texas Monthly here.

Ray Wylie Hubbard on “Whiskey River,” Strong Weed, and Willie Nelson’s Smile (“One By Willie)

Sunday, May 28th, 2023

photo: Ha Lamb

www.texasmonthly.com
by: John Spong

Read entire article and listen here.

As the man who wrote “Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother,” Ray Wylie Hubbard—one of the founding fathers of Americana music—knows a little bit about anthems. On this episode of One by Willie, Hubbard focuses on a Willie song that rose to that lofty status long ago, Nelson’s erstwhile show opener “Whiskey River.” It’s one of those songs that even casual fans recognize the instant they hear its opening  guitar lick, and Hubbard describes how Willie took it from the original, hard-core country shuffle released in 1972 by its composer, Johnny Bush; filtered it through what Hubbard calls Willie’s “jazz, jam-band mind”; and turned it into what many consider the national anthem of Texas.

Read entire article and listen here.

Willie Nelson Interview, by Kevin O’Hare (May/2010)

Sunday, May 28th, 2023

by Kevin O’Hare
http://www.masslive.com

At the age of 77, Willie Nelson is still riding high and riding strong, touring steadily as always and celebrating the release of his exceptional new album “Country Music.”

It’s the latest in a rather astounding catalog of more than 200 albums, some dating back to his earliest days as a songwriter in the early 1960s, when he attracted the interest of stars like Patsy Cline, who famously recorded Nelson’s “Crazy,” and Ray Price, who had a major hit with Nelson’s “Night Life.”

Eventually Nelson shifted from Nashville to Austin where he became a key player in the “country outlaw’ movement that tossed aside every known stereotype about traditional country music of the era. Nelson’s hair got longer, he became well known for smoking marijuana and he turned into a superstar in 1978 with his distinct reworking of pop standards titled “Stardust.”

He began recording at a frenzied pace around this period, making sure to release albums of duets with old friends like Price, Merle Haggard, Leon Russell and many others. Whether he over-saturated the market at the time is still worthy of debate but his concert sales remain strong and steady to this day.

He recently spoke from his home in Texas about his amazing career, famous friends like the late great Cline, his reputation for smoking lots of weed, his new album and his thoughts for the future:

You’ve released more than 200 albums. How in the world can you try and deliver something fresh on the new album “Country Music?”

Well it depends a lot on the songs, the producers and the musicians. With this particular album “Country Music” it was a no brainer. T Bone Burnett knows this music as well as anyone. I’m sure it was easy for him to come up with great musicians and come up with some great songs. “Dark as a Dungeon,” “Oceans of Diamonds” and all those great songs that we’ve all heard and sung for many years but they’ve been sort of lost in the shuffle along the way and he was sharp enough to put them all together and say “Hey let’s do these again.”

What was it like working with T Bone Burnett and how did you guys get to first know each other?

Well, we’re old Texas buddies, he’s from Ft. Worth and I’m from somewhere around there. I’ve known about him for years and years. His wife and my wife were buddies. We played golf together not too long ago and talked about doing something. He’d just had the “Crazy Heart” movie and I felt maybe it’d be a good time for us to do a CD together and I just turned it over to him really.

There’s a great song on the album called “Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down.” Do you see Satan in the world around us? If so, where?

Well of course. We all see things that are the opposite of peace and love so we put a name on it and it’s Satan. No matter what your thoughts and beliefs are, God is good, Satan is hate. And that’s just the way it is. We who sing gospel songs talk about God and Satan as mortal enemies. In this particular song, it’s an old traditional, it’s a wonderful song.“I’ve been promising myself to take it easy on myself and not work so hard so we’ll see how it goes.” – Willie Nelson

“Pistol Packin’ Mama.” Tell me a little about the song.

That song has been in my repertoire for a long, long time. Al Dexter, who originally recorded it, was a friend of mine, we knew each other back in the old days back in Ft. Worth. I’ve sung the song a lot. When T Bone brought it to the session I said “Hey where’s that song been?”

Speaking of “Pistol Packin’ Mama,” who’s the craziest woman you ever had a relationship with?

(extended laughter) How much time you got?

I got the time, if you’ve got the money.

I probably shouldn’t put names on them but there are a few (laughs).

When you had the huge breakthrough in the 1970s with “Red Headed Stranger” and then “Stardust” you started recording albums at an amazing pace. Did you ever worry that you might be over-saturating the market?

Well I was sort of warned that I could, but there really wasn’t a lot that I wanted to do about it because this was my shot and I had a chance to get stuff, record it and get it out there. I felt I could do it, I wasn’t overloading myself. I might have been overloading the record companies and their ability to market all that stuff. I could see where they were coming from.

There was some talk years ago that you might do an album of duets with Bob Dylan. Whatever happened to that?

It was an idea that is still a good idea that may or may not happen. As close as we came, we did write one song together, we were gonna write a whole album and then record it but we ended up doing one song together. He hummed a melody and cut a track and it went like (Nelson sings melody). What it wound up being was (“Heartland”) “There’s a home place under fire tonight in the heartland … My American dream fell apart at the seams.” He wrote it a little bit, I wrote it a little bit, we went into the studio and cut it.

On April 30 you turned 77. You’re still playing about 200 dates every year. How can you keep that up?

I don’t know, it’s crazy and I’ll probably slack off a little bit. I’ve been promising myself to take it easy on myself and not work so hard so we’ll see how it goes.

I interviewed B.B. King a few years ago and he said the same thing but I don’t think he’s slowed down too much either.

No but it’s in the back of our minds. We know that we’re down here rounding third so it’s really whether we want to slide into home or just kind of trot across (laughs).

You take a lot of kidding for your rather legendary marijuana smoking. Larry King seemed startled that you had smoked up before appearing on his show recently. When did you start and do you ever see a day when you’ll stop?

Oh, I have stopped before and gone days and days and days. It’s not as though if I don’t get marijuana I get headaches. There have been cases where if I smoked too much my lungs get congested and I lay off awhile. Things are getting so simple now. In California and about 12, 15 different states you can buy edibles and you can get high eating candy. It’s not necessary to destroy your lungs anymore smoking if you just want to get high.

Is your bus as bad as Toby Keith says?

Toby can’t handle it (laughs) He’s a little wimpy in that department. He’s the first to admit it. God love him.

A few years ago you took up running. Are you still doing that?

I went out for a little run today. I don’t run as far or as fast as I used to but I still try and get in a few steps a day.

You’re still golfing?

I’ve had to stop golfing for awhile because I hurt my arm … golfing naturally. So I’ve not been golfing for about three months now.

That must be killing you.

Well, it’s good enough for me I guess, if I had a better swing I wouldn’t have done it.

Hopefully you’ll be back on the course soon.

One of these days, but I had a ruptured bicep from overdoing something and then I tore the rotator in my left arm. My left side is a little bit out but it will get better.

Can you tell me a little bit about Patsy Cline?

Well, she was the greatest female vocalist maybe all around ever, but for sure, for country, that I ever heard. There’s this joke. After Patsy Cline did “Crazy” and everyone else has tried it, and this joke is really not meant to hurt anybody else’s feelings but when they say “How many girl singers does it take to sing “Crazy” and they answered “All of them.” But as Patsy Cline nailed it, who else since then, it’s like Ray Charles singing “Georgia.” I had enough nerve to cover him but I never thought I did as good a job on it as he did.

Were you and Patsy close?

Yeah, we toured together and … I first met her one night back there in Tootsies Bar, drinking a little beer and her husband Charlie Dick was there and we were talking, listening to some songs that I’d just brought up from Texas. I had Tootsie put a couple of 45s on her jukebox. One of them had “Crazy” and “Night Life.” And Charlie Dick just really loved “Crazy” and wanted to play it for Patsy. We went over to his house and he wanted me to go in and meet Patsy and I wouldn’t do it. I said “No it’s late and we’re drinking, I don’t want to wake her up. He said “Aw she’ll be fine.” I didn’t go in. He went in and then she came out and got me and made me go in. She was a wonderful person, fixed us coffee, was just a great gal. I got to know her real well, we toured some together and she was just great.

\You were in the Highwaymen. What are your favorite memories of playing and touring with Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and you all in one band?

Well every night was a great show for me ‘cause I was way over on the right and I got to see three of my heroes perform all night long all over the world. It doesn’t get any better than that.

What was it like after the shows?

Well we had all our families with us. Most of our wild days were behind us by the time we got together in the Highwaymen. Actually the last two or three times we went on tour, we had all our kids and families and went to Singapore and Australia and different places. We had 278 pieces of luggage.

Who had the idea of the four of you working together?

We had gone to Switzerland to do a Christmas show with Johnny Cash and June Carter. They invited me and Waylon and Kris to play on their Christmas show. We were having a photo session one day and the photographer said “What are you all going to Switzerland for?” And we said. “That’s where Jesus was born.” And the photographer said “Oh, ok.” We laughed about that awhile. We did that and decided it was a lot of fun and thought maybe we should do some records together. Someone, I forget who it was, had the song “The Highwayman,” the Jimmy Webb song. We played it and liked it and thought this might be something we want to do.

How long did it take you to record the new album “Country Music?”

A couple of minute s (laughs) It was really quick. Everyone knew the songs. Most of the things we did in one or two takes, it doesn’t take long to record when you do it that way.

You’re not a seven, or eight or nine take guy anyway are you?

No, three’s my limit. Usually I get it in one ‘cause usually we do not press the record button until we know just what we’re doing. Then once that happens I like to do two more just for insurance in case I’m not hearing something. But a lot of times I take the first take.

Of the movies you have made, which one is your favorite and why?

I liked “Barbarosa” and “Red Headed Stranger.” Hell, I enjoyed doing “The Songwriter” and “A Pair of Aces” with Kris. With “The Songwriter,” Kris and I always had a lot of fun. As far as “Red Headed Stranger” and “Barbarosa,” I like horses a lot and I got along with them ok so that was always fun where I could ride a horse or play my guitar.

Speaking of your guitar, your Martin guitar has a huge hole in it. That hole was there back in the 1970s. Has it gotten bigger and how long can you keep playing it?

It’ll last longer than I do probably. It still plays fine. I have to take it in every few years and have them do a reinforcement in the inside to make sure it hasn’t collapsed anymore in there. But right now it’s in fine shape, it’ll last longer that I will.

You have a lot of signatures on there right?

Well the first person I heard of anybody signing their guitar was Leon Russell and he asked me to sign his. I said “Sure” and I started to sign it with a marker and he said “No scratch it in there with a knife.” He had a knife there so I scratched my name with a knife. Then I said “Now that I’ve done yours why don’t’ you do mine?” So I had him scratch his name on Trigger (the name of Nelson’s guitar), he was the first one I had on there.

How is Leon Russell doing, I’d heard he’s been sick.

I think he’s doing fine. I think he and Elton John are doing an album together and he’s supposed to play my 4th of July picnic down in Austin so I think he’s doing better.

You two made a great album, “One For the Road”

We have another one that’s in the can that we’re waiting to put out.

When did you record it?

Last year sometime.

What songs did you do?

We did some country things that I like, some Vern Gosdin things. We did “My Cricket and Me, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash, “Chiseled in Stone,” a lot of different songs that we like.

What do you still want to achieve and what are you working on next?

Honestly, I want to achieve this tour (laughs). It’s been a long one. Then I can figure out what I want to do next. Once it’s over with, I want to rest a while and then I can figure out what I want to do next. So far we’ve had a good year, the album’s doing good, I really don’t have a lot to worry about anything right now.”

Willie Nelson on the Johnny Carson Show (1987)

Saturday, May 13th, 2023

Willie Nelson GQ Interview (May 11, 2012)

Thursday, May 11th, 2023
mikebrooks3
photo: Mike Brooks

http://www.gq.com
by:  Dan Hyman

Willie Nelson doesn’t schedule interviews. Nowadays, his publicist rings him up, and when the country legend happens to pick up—which, judging by our multiple failed attempts to get him on the line, is a rare occurrence—he’s informed there’s a reporter on the other line. Would he like to chat, perhaps? He almost never says no. So on the first call that Nelson answers—our fourth attempt overall—we’re on the line with the man known as the Red Headed Stranger.

At seventy-eight, Willie Nelson is a relic. But he doesn’t see it that way, because the country star has managed to stay as busy as ever. He’s usually touring. When he’s not, Nelson is either at his Austin, Texas ranch or at his home in Maui. Time away, however, doesn’t often suit Willie well. He likes to work. And after all, how fun could resting on your laurels be when you’ve has sold upwards of 50 million albums?

Nelson is most excited about his latest endeavor, Heroes (due May 15), a full-length album he recorded last year with family and close friends, including Snoop Dogg, Kris Kristofferson, and Jamey Johnson. Heroes is not your average Willie Nelson post-millennial release—the man, in addition to a trio of new originals, covers Coldplay and Pearl Jam. Nelson was in Mississippi when he hopped on the line with GQ, and talked about his new album, enjoying Amsterdam with his pal Snoop Dogg, and how he’s smoking as much pot as ever. 

GQ: Thanks for hopping on the phone, Willie!
Willie Nelson: Sure!

GQ: Heroes was a family affair. Your sons, Lukas and Micah, share writing credits on the album.


Willie Nelson: It was, and is always nice to work with the kids. But I also had a lot (of others): Kris (Kristofferson) and Jamey (Johnson) and Snoop and Sheryl Crow and a bunch of other great talent in there. (Billie) Joe Shaver. Ray Price. So a lot of my friends were in there.

GQ: Speaking of Snoop, I hear you shared some time together in Amsterdam.

Willie Nelson: Yah. I was in Amsterdam and I got a call from Snoop and he was, I think, in New York or somewhere and didn’t have anything to do. So he just flew over and we hung out for a few days.

GQ: I assume you two frequented a few of Amsterdam’s famous coffee shops?

Willie Nelson: We had a cup of coffee or two [laughs]. We got to be good buddies.

GQ: I know you are also longtime buddies with fellow country icon Billy Joe Shaver, who also appears on the album.

Willie Nelson: Heck, yah! In fact the song, “Heroes”, I wrote that song about Billy Joe, really. We stay in touch. We text back and forth all the time.

GQ: And Kris Kristofferson, another longtime friend of yours, also makes an appearance.

Willie Nelson: We’re big friends. I saw him a little while ago. I was in Maui and he lives over there also sometimes. He’d come by. We hung out a little bit. Another time before, that he brought Muhammad Ali by.

GQ: Kristofferson and Ali. Quite the combination.

Willie Nelson: [Ali]’s an incredible guy. One time I think we were playing in Kentucky or something and he’d come by and say hello. And I brought him on the bus and we hung out a little bit. And I’ve got a punching bag in the back so I got him back there punching the bag.

GQ: You have some surprising covers on Heroesyour cover of Coldplay’s “The Scientist” in particular.

Willie Nelson: It was for a [Chipotle] commercial first and it was pretty well received, so we decided to put it out on the new album.

GQ: And Pearl Jam’s “Just Breathe”? Can’t say I saw that coming.

Willie Nelson: My son Lukas knew that song and he brought it to the studio. And that’s really how that happened. He brought about half the songs to the studio.

GQ: Is that a different process than normal? Do you usually come up with the track list yourself?

Willie Nelson: [It happens] all kind of different ways. On this particular one, Luke came up with the song and naturally I liked the song. But I wasn’t familiar with it until we recorded it.

GQ: It’s interesting because “Just Breathe” sounds like it could have been one of your originals.
Willie Nelson: Aw, thanks!

GQ: I know you have a home in Hawaii. Have you been spending a good deal of time down there lately?

Willie Nelson: I just spent a couple weeks over there and we’re back traveling now. I’m in Mississippi tonight and then Illinois. I just enjoy both working and not working. And fortunately I work enough where I get that out of my system and then we take a few days off, take a rest. It’s working pretty good. We work a couple weeks and then we take a couple off.

GQ: What does Willie Nelson do in his downtime? Are his off-duty activities a bit different than in, say, 1975?

Willie Nelson: Oh, it’s the same stuff I was doing in ’75! I don’t notice any changes. I went for a bike ride a while ago, a little run. The weather’s nice here so I can get out. So I’m just doing whatever I can do. And when I’m off I’m either playing some golf or some poker or whatever comes up.

GQ: What motivates you to get up each morning and keep playing and writing music?

Willie Nelson: New music keeps coming along and every now and then I write some new things—there’s “Hero,” “Roll Me Up,” and “Come On Back Jesus” on the new album. Then I go back and do something in the show that we hadn’t done in maybe a long, long time. Like last night I did “I Guess I’ve Come to Live Here in Your Eyes”. And I recorded that twenty, thirty years ago. [Editor’s Note: Nelson recorded this track in 1996] Every now and then I’ll think of something to put back in the show. I just kind of play it off the top of my head. If I do it that way it keeps it kinda fresh.


GQ: People love to mythologize your marijuana intake. Is your current pot consumption level exaggerated?

Willie Nelson: No, I still probably smoke as much as I ever did! I use a few different methods now. I don’t smoke as many joints as I used to. I use vaporizers a lot. It cuts down on the heat and the smoke. And for a singer that’s not a bad idea.

GQ: I must ask. How’s your famous acoustic guitar, Trigger? She still receiving the finest of care?

Willie Nelson: Trigger’s doing great! Trigger’s probably in better shape than I am.

This entry was post

Willie Nelson interview, “Country Music” (February 1976)

Thursday, February 2nd, 2023

Willie Nelson interview “Country Music” (February 1976)

Country Music Magazine
February 1976
by Patrick Carr

We begin with an ending of sorts. We are in Nashville on a drizzly night, packed into the Municipal Auditorium like so many high-rent sardines approaching the strung-out finale of the Disk Jockey Convenion 1975.

Taken together tonight, we are perhaps the most professional audience any of these Columbia/Epic acts are likely to play for at least another year: all of us are Somebodies in the country music business, and we’are all hip to the score. The Columbia/Epic actes bounce on stage and do whatever thing they do, three numbers each, one after the other. Tammy Wynette, Mac Davis, Barbara Fairchild, David Houston… it’s very democratic but pretty soon it becomes obvious which artists are getting corporate nod right now because all you really have to do is watch the company personnel pay or not pay attention. Nevertheless, it’s a subtle affair.

But when Willie Nelson and his band of gypsies make their entrance backstage, looking for all the world like some flying wedge of curiously benign Hells Angels, subtlety goes by the board and it’s plain that this year’s Most Likely To Succeed slot has just been taken with a vengeanance: a great shaking of hands begins.

The impression is confirmed when Willie proceeds to get up onstage with his full band (all the other acts were backed by the Columbia band) and play a 40-minute set that, except for a qute seemly absence of illegal drugs and teenage nudity among the audience, might just have well be happening in Texas on the 4th of July. This is the ending of sorts, and what it means is that after telling the Nashville powers-that-be to get lost and leaving town just three short years ago, Willie Nelson has become the country music wave of the future and is now accepting Nashville’s praise and promotional efforts on his own terms.

There is a postscript, though. Three or four hours later — after another couple of hundred handshakes, after attending a very high-rent Columbia party to which his band was not invited, and after behaving like a perfect gentleman through it all — Willie gets himself down to Ernest Tubb’s Record Store and plays for two hours while most every other star in town is out at Opryland all gussied up to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Grand Ole Opry amid great pomp and ceremony of the By Invitation Only Kind.

It isn’t that Willie couldn’t have shown up at the Opry — with his current Columbia-backed status, that’s a silly notion — and it isn’t that he’s trying a reverse-chic move like one of Nashville’s several dozen I’m-so-hip-isn’t-this-earthy tipes might attemps. It’s just that his old friend and musical hero Ernest was gracious enough to invite him, and that Ernest Tubb’s Record Store is still the best place in town to get down and play straight honky tonk music for the friends and neighbors.

Apart from being a rebel against Nashville’s creative restrictions, a culture hero, a real sweetheart, a person blessed with a highly sophisticated sense of humor, and the man who first made it possible for hippies and rednecks to co-exist under the protection of his music — all of which he is — Willie Nelson has always been one other thing. He has always been a wrtier and singer of the classic country honky tonk song, which is to say that he has always had a very precise, lonely, realistic understanding of the hard ways of this vale of tears in which we all live and suffer form time to time. This is the juke box Willie.

Historicallly, this music came out of more or less, his whol career up to today (which seems somewhat more optimistic when you consider the conclusions of the Red Headed Stranger album). It’s the kind of stuff — like “Hello Walls,” “Ain’t It Funny (How Time Slips Away),” “Pretty Paper,” “Touch Me” and all those other perfectly songs — that really say it to you when you’re down and getting kicked. Willie wrote most of it in Nashville when he was a highly-reputed songwriter trying to be a singing star, simultaneously going through the usual business of divorce, marriage, divorce, marriage and consequent craziness (or is that vice versa?) and running with the likes of Faron Young, Roger Miller, Mel Tillis and other distinguished crazy people.

A segment of my Willie Nelson interview:

Willie (laughing): “I think a lot of people got to thinking that everybody had to do the same thing Hank Williams did, even die that way if necessary. And that got out of hand. I always used to think George Jones got drunk because Hank Williams did, like he really thought that was what he was uspposed to do.”

Me: “You ever do that?”

Willie: “‘Course I did. That’s the reason I know it’s done.”

Me: “You still do it?”

Willie: “I still get drunk, but I’m not really mimicking anybody now. I have my own drunken style.”

These days, see, Willie won’t talk about the personal agonies of those Nashville years without humor, but it’s all there in the songs which made him one of Nashville’s most sought-after songwriters, and it came to a head during the years — his last year in Nashville — that gave rise to his Phases and Stages album. That year was a turning point, and it is chronicled in Phases and Stages. The album is an excruciatingly universal account of the way one man and one woman deal with their divorce (”That was the year I had four or five cars totalled out and the house burned down,” says Willie), but it ends with a very significant song called “Pick Up the Tempo.” It goes like so:

People are sayin’ that time will take
care of people like me
And that I’m livin’ too fast, and
they say I can’t last for much longer
But little they see that their
thoughts of me is my savior
And little they know that the beat
ought to go just a little faster,
So pick up the tempo just a little,
and take it on home….

For a man hitting the crucial age of forty, those are important lines. They speak of an affirmation of life and a determination to triumph over its emotional problems, and they represent Willie’s decison to leave Nashville, move back home to Texas, and finally realize his potential which is, in fact, exactly what he did. “I knew I only had a few years left to do what I was gong to do, and I had to make a move,” says Willie. “I wasn’t going down there to quit. I was going down there with a purpose.” the purpose, quite simply, was first to make himself a national recording star, and then to use that power base to make damn sure that people like him could be free to make their own music their own way without having to starve in the process.

Remember, Willie has a history in this department. It was he who first chaperoned Charley Pride into the country music concept scene, bringing him on stage in Louisiana — actually kissing him right there in the spotlights – and risking God only knows what kind of backlash in the process. The risk, once taken, paid off: Charley was accepted because Willie was behind him. Similarly, Willie, used his high prestige and general likeability in country music artist circles to ease Leon Russell into the Nashville scene by surrounding him with Ernest Tubb, Roy Acuff, Jeanne Pruett and a whole galaxy of main-line performers when he was cutting the sequel to his “Hank Wilson” album.

Willie can get away with heresy because more than any other artist occupying the often-queasy ground between because more than any other artist occupying the often queasy ground between country and something else, his country credentials are in order — more to the point — he has never betrayed his roots.

So Willie arrived in Austin (where he was already a star), formed his present band around himself and his old compadre drummer Paul English (of “Me and Paul” fame), began booking his own dates and managing himself, set up that first media-shocking Picnic at Dripping Springs, connected with the local power elite in the person of Darrell Royal (coach of the University of Texas football team and a very influential citizen), and quickly assumed the role of main Godfather in the Austin scheme of things. That, incidentally, is some gig: you don’t know what a loyal crowd is until you’ve been to Austin and watched a whole clubful of liberated young things worship the ground good ol’ Willie walks on to quite embarrasing excess.

Along the way — just before that first Picnic, in fact — Ritchie Albright of the Waylors suggested that he get in touch with Neil Reshen, a New york manager and fixit person who at the time was looking to consolidate his country music holdings. Reshin already had Waylon as a client, and Willie followed suit. This action signified the arrive with the neccessary teeth for the coutlaw allliance Willie had been pondering for years, and it became a classic Beauty and the Beast operation that continues to this day.

An example of the dynamics of that Beauty and the Beast relationship:

Willie on Neil Reshen: “He’s probably the most hated and the most effective manager that I know of. He enjoys going up to those big corporations and going over their figures. He’s so sadistic, he loves to do it.”

And once again, Willie: “At least you know where you’re at with Neil. Nowhere.”

And again: “Anyone who can learn to like Neil can like anyone. It’s a challenge to like Neil.”

“Willie, how are you doing on that?”

“I’m coming along, I’m coming alone. I can stay around him a little while now.”

Althought the mere mention of Neil Reshen’s name has been known to send secretaries to the bathroom and turn grown executives into violent monsters (”He’s another of those guys I don’t understand how he lived so long with somebody really hurting him,” says Willie), you have to admit that while Willie and Waylon (”It’s like having a maddog on a leash,” says Waylon) may have been able to get out of Nashville’s grasp without him. It’s only through this man’s unspeakably vicious yet effective manner of dong business, that the outlaw bid for independent power on country music has avoided bankruptcy and actually shown a profit.

So, with the active assistance of New York Neil, Willie has established the power base he was after. It is now possible for Willie to record with Waylon or Kris or Leon (he’s planning a whole Willie/Waylon joint album), and what’s more, with the formation of Lone Star Records, he can get people like Jimmy Day, Johnny Darrell, Floyd Tillman, Billy C., Bucky Meadows, his sister Bobbie and other Texas worthies into the recording studio and, since Columbia Records pays for promotion and distribution under a joint Columbia/Lone Star deal, actually get the finished product before the public. Like Willie says, “We’re all togethe

hr, and we have the same idea about what we wnat to do, which is to do our thing our own way. I’m trying to get these guys to do for themselves what they’ve been bitching about people not doing for them.”

Willie’s long affair with the business of honky tonk music represents one considerable side of his character which may be traceable to the fact that he and his sister Bobbi (”it’s alwyas been me and her”) were raised without parents. Mr. and Mrs. Nelson divorced when Willie was a baby and Bobbi was there, and so for the first six eyars of his life Wilile was with his grandparents. For the next tne year, he was raised by his grandmoter alone, grandfather having passed away. That of coruse is a vast oversimplification, but the roots of his two divorces and highly creative loneliness must lie buried somewhere in there, just as the roots of his present, almost uncanny serenity must be located in the emotional steps he took to overcome his personal problems. Whatever, it is an absolute fact that the presnet-day Willie Nelson is most definitely not an individual still in conflict with himself.

In a sense, Willie Nelson now is in some sort of still-perceptive, still creative cruise-gear, moving through a world of incredibly high pressure with almost perfect equilibrium. You can hear this feeling on the Red Headed Stranger album (a concept suggested and assisted by his wife Connie, with whom he does in fact seem quite happy) and you can see it when, dead center in the eye of one of this nation’s strangest cultural hurricanes, he drifts through the absolute mayhem of his Picnic and somehow manages to be a rock-like source of calm and competence for (literally) thousands of the most outrageously uncalm, incompetent hustlers, freaks and assorted weirdos ever assembled under one patch of Texas sky.

It also shows when, in the middle of yet another night of pushing his ragged band through a set of half-tragic, half-boogie music and watching with a smile as his audience stumbles and whoops its way towards unconsciousness, it comes down to just him and his Spanish-style, gut-string amplified Martin, and for a while the most carefully emotional, beautifully balanced little collection of mood notes in the world go soaring through the rancid air.

This is the musical legacy of Django Reinhardt, Grady Martin and the other psychological gypsy guitar pickers from whom Willie developed his style; it is also the mark of a man who has really seen it all and can still look it straight in the eye.

Atlanta, Georgia: Willie is on a First Class trip. Laid out in the back of the limousine behind his big spade shades, he is relaxing into the ways of being a star with records on the charts. There’ll be no more no-money dives to play, and for a while there won’t even be any songwriting unless the fancy takes him. Willie explains that he’s not one of those poeple who get headaches when they’re not writing, and since his next two albums — a Gospel album and an album of Lefty Frizzel songs — are already in the can, all he really has to do is keep on showing up for Willie Nelson concerts.

There are also some interesting projects in the wind, and they might even get done. there’s the issue of a Red Headed Stranger movie, for instance (”If I had the money and any idea about how to do it, I’d be somewhere doin’ it right now”,) and the almost equally interesting notion of Willie, Ray Price, Roger Miller, Johnny Paycheck and Johnny Bush getting together to do a couple of original Cherokee Cowboy dates.

Tonight Willie’s nose will be back on the grindstone as once again he takes the stage with his gypsies and plays for the sticky young drunks and dopers of Atlanta. Tonight, once again, he’ll be up there doing “Will The Circle Be Unbroken?” and “Eileen Goodnight” with whoever wants to join in (this time it’s Tracy Nelson and Linda Ronstadt and Mylon LeFevre), and tonight there’ll be another endless hillbilly amnesia session up in the hotel room.

Tomorrow there’ll be another bloody mary morning when Paul, bless him, has paid the bills and checked us all out and onto the road again. But now, just for a while, Willie is thinking about his Gospel album and remembering that he was asked to quit teaching in Sunday School when they found out that Little Willie played the local Texas beer joints at night.

“Were you a good preacher, Willie?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says. “I really was.”

“Are you a religious man?”

“Yes,” he says, “Probably more than I ever was. Y’know?”

Somehow, when you really get serious about Willie Nelson, the answer is not at all surprising.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2021 at 6:50 p

Willie Nelson on Real Time with Bill Maher (January 24, 2013)

Tuesday, January 24th, 2023

“There has never been a recorded instance of an overdose of marijuana. I have living proof sitting beside me.” — Bill Maher