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by: J. Colin Denning
If there were to ever be an actual brick-and-mortar “Stoner Hall of Fame” built, there would be a fifty foot bronze statue of the man profiled in this post out in front of it. A true legend in singing, songwriting, and partying your ass off, Willie Nelson is a man that has earned every ounce of respect and adoration that has come his way. He may not be the ‘hippest’ thing happening in music today, but every weed-toking human should bow before this absolute giant of the music and smoking communities.
Young Willie began drinking and smoking cigarettes when he was just six years old and writing songs by the age of seven (no, those are not typos). He started with a guitar and chords given to him by his grandfather and began performing with a local group at age ten (also, NOT a typo). Nelson left high school and joined the Air Force like many young lads of the day, but was discharged after a few months due to back issues. He came home and went to Baylor University but basically said, “Fuck it” because he enjoyed playing music so much – although he did not see any immediate success and actually quit the business several times.
By the late fifties, Nelson was recording and failing, but was able to find work all over the country as a disc jockey. It was also around this time while living in Fort Worth, Texas, where Willie tried smoking the reefer for the first time. In 2012, he would confess on the Today Show, “The first time I smoked pot I kept waiting for something to happen. I kept puffing and puffing, waiting for something to happen, but nothing happened. So I went back to cigarettes and whiskey, which made shit happen.”
He sold some of his songs here and there – most notably was “Crazy”, which was sung by Patsy Cline and became one of the biggest hits of all time. If you say you have never heard that song, you are both a liar and a communist. Nelson continued to write and record for many labels with varying success, but his biggest successes came in the early seventies after yet another brief retirement.
By the early seventies, Willie was off the sauce and on the green full time. His hair was long and braided and he identified more with the hippies in San Francisco than the country suits in Nashville. His style of “Outlaw Country” had resonated with the masses through albums like Red Headed Strangerand Phases and Stages. Nelson also produced and performed in the very first episode of the hit PBS show, Austin City Limits in 1977, a program that is still running today – highlighting the best and the brightest musicians from every genre of music under the sun.
Willie Nelson loves his weed so much, that he has been to jail because of it a few times- most recently in 2010 at the ripe old age of 77, when six ounces of cheeba was found on his tour bus. I, for one, only wish that I might be able to stay alive long enough to get arrested at 77 for six ounces. If nothing else, Willie is one hell of a stubborn old bastard.