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Willie:  An Autobiography
by Willie Nelson with Bud Shrake
2000

by Bo Allen
Country Music April/May 2001

In the ’90s, when Willie Nelson had his home and other assets seized by the IRS, a reporter asked him how he was faring.

“Fine,” he said with a shrug and flashed his familiar stoned-faced grin.  “It’s just a bump in the road.”

“Pretty big bump, though,” the reporter offered.

“Not,” Nelson said with a grin, “if you’re goin’ fast.”

In this reissued, unrevised 1988 autobiography, there seems to  e two secrets revealed about Nelson:  He has always possessed a supreme and down-right narcissistic confidence in his own talent, and his lifestyle is all-consuming.  As such, they have always enabled him to transcend secondary considerations, like finances.

Hector DeJean of Cooper Square reports that Nelson’s unique artistry and unusual life story led his company to reissue the formerly out-of-print biography.  “There really is no other definitive book on him out there,” reasons DeJean, adding that Nelson wouldn’t cooperate for the update.

No matter.  Refrershingly free of bitterness, pettiness and finger-pointing, Willie:  An Autobiography is chock full fo delightful, hilarious, self-effacing and often revelatory anecdotes.

Occasional screenwriter Bud Shrake brings a strong narrative force to Nelson’s life, even though his celebrated subject has lived a life so eventful and chaotic that it can defy the most diligent biographer’s attempts at chronology and consequence.

Willie is augmented by a chorus of short counterbalancing chapters focusing on immediate family, longtime friends, band mates, musicians and business associates.

Another big surprise is Nelson’s deep, abiding and characteristically unorthodox Christianity, which is leavened by eclectic spiritual influences like the writings of Kahil Gibran, the teachings of Edgar Cayce and the pop wisdom of new-age revisionist tomes like the Acquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The missing piece, of course, is the last 12 years of Nelson’s life, which have been both prolific and eventful.  He’s lost a son, cleaned up his IRS debt, married his fourth wife and made lots of great music.

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