Five Flags Arena, Dubuque, Iowa
When Willie Nelson last performed in Dubuque, in August 2003, the performance set a record for grossing $115,891, playing to a sellout crowd of 3,840 fans.
By Sandye Voight
http://www.thonline.com
The concert at Five Flags Center is billed as Willie Nelson & Family in Concert, with special guest Billy Bob Thornton & the Boxmasters.
Family consists of Willie’s sister Bobbie, who’s played piano to his vocals and guitar for three decades, and a musical family that has been with him just as long. Nelson’s on-stage family includes Jody Payne, guitar; Mickey Raphael, harmonica; Bee Spears, electric bass; Paul English, snare drum; and Billy English, percussion.
Texas-born Willie Nelson, 75, president of Farm Aid, is an American icon, with his trademark ponytail and red bandana. Nelson appeared in support of one-time presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich in Dubuque. He has an open letter on his Web site to President-elect Obama offering the organization’s help in “creating a new farm and food policy that supports a sustainable family farm system of agriculture.”
Classic Willie Nelson tunes are “Funny How Time Slips Away,” “Night Life,” “You Are Always On My Mind” and “On the Road Again.”
Bobbie, Nelson, 76, has been performing with her brother since 1972.
“I’m on the road most of the time,” she said in a phone interview during a brief interlude in Austin, Texas, where her son lives.
“I consider it a blessing,” she said, of a life on tour playing her beloved piano. “I get to do something I love to do. When I come home, I’m with family. The rest of the time, I’m with Willie.” She misses her younger brother when they aren’t together. They were raised together by their grandparents in tiny Abbott, Texas, and have remained close friends throughout a long musical career together.
“Our grandfather died young, but he started teaching us music,” she said. She learned to play on an old pump organ her father had bought. But when her grandfather took her to singing conventions as a child, she heard a woman playing gospel music and fell in love with the piano.
“I just dreamed about a piano. I pretended I had one. I even made one, the way children will do,” she said. So her grandfather told her grandmother to teach her to read music and to play.
“My fingers were so little. I couldn’t reach an octave,” she said. But with lessons from the Methodist minister’s wife, she could play and read music before she ever got to school. Singing was another story.
“I soon discovered that Willie’s voice was so fabulous, and what was I doing, messing him up?”
Response has been so good to her CD, “Audiobiography,” that she said she probably will record again, especially songs that are special to her. It was released last year, as her response to suggestions she write an autobiography. She has tackled a written-word version and hasn’t given up on that project. She started with writing about her grandparents’ lives.
“But what I do in life is play with music. I love to play with Willie. I don’t plan to retire and Willie doesn’t either, until we don’t have a choice.”
Her CD was recorded at the Pedernales Studio outside of Austin. Willie founded the studio and her son, Freddie Fletcher runs it.
Newest “family” member actor Billie Bob Thornton is on the Midwestern tour with the Nelsons through the first week of December. The Boxmasters, according to Thornton’s Web site, have been called “the future of hillbilly rock and roll.” The group is performing music from their new holiday album, “Christmas Cheer.”
The original Boxmasters include W.R. “Bud” Thornton, J.D. Andrew and Mike Butler. Joining the band for the tour are Brad Davis, Mike “Bubba” Bruce, Danny Baker and Jon Rauhouse.