One-on-one With America’s Greatest Singer/Songwriter… Willie Nelson
by Elianne Halbersberg
Modern Screen Country Magazine
July 1997
It’s raining in Mississippi, which means “too wet to play golf” for Willie Nelson. Instead, he’s enjoying, as he says, “great food,” which, in this case, is organically grown spinach, turnip greens and potatoes. This is significant for the man in charge of Farm Aid, and he has decided to spend this day granting interviews…although in Nelson’s case, they’re mostly conversations — relaxed and open to any subject. Asked if he always schedules interview based on the weather, he chuckles, “I hadn’t really planned on golfing today. I was sitting here and Evelyn [his publicist] sent me a list of phone numbers. I thought today would be a good day to start talking. It’s nice to have people who want to talk to you — that makes my day!
Elianne Halbersberg: Your publicist told me you usually schedule only 15-minute interviews. How much can you accomplish in such brief soundbites?
Willie Nelson: I don’t know. It depends how good I am at using a few words to say a lot. It also depends on the particular writer who puts it down on paper making it sound better than I said it. I may need your help on this!
EH: Do you ever lose patience with interviewers?
WN: Oh no. I get asked the same questions over and over, three or four times today, even. I usually just answer it differently, try to make it colorful.
EH: Does the press really understand, in your opinion, what fans want to know?
WN: I doubt it, unless they’re fans too. You have an opinion and it’s more powerful because you’re the press. It’s like me and a song — we have an edge on the rest of the people. A fan can only get his message across by reading your articles and buying my records. Hopefully, they do both.
EH: What DO fans want to know?
WN: Everything you don’t want them to — they want to know that first!
EH: In order to succeed, you must have self-confidence. What’s the difference between that and conceit?
WN: Not much! It’s a thin line. That’s a good question. Neither one, in and of itself, is totally negative. Or positive. I think confidence is good, but it is very similar to conceit.
EH: How do you know when you’ve crossed that line?
WN: Your best friends may tell you. But better to have that than the alternative. It’s kind of like halitosis — bad breath is better than no breath at all.
DH: A couple of days ago Marty Stuart told me, “I believe in friends like Johnny Cash and Willie. They make the trends look ridiculous, thin, and vain.” Aside from knowing Marty’s in your corner, how does such a comment make you feel?
WN: I knew I was in trouble when I heard someone say, “I wish they’d play the old guys like George Strait and Randy Travis.” You know, music changes, fads come along. Remember when Ray Charles released ‘I Can’t Stop Loving You’ and brought millions of new fans? Every time country goes through changes, it brings a lot of new people. But it’s all phases and stages. I never had that much radio airplay, never depended on it to make a living. I depended on having a good band, doing a good show, and when you work clubs — which I still do because I enjoy them — you have the advantage of them being open every night, so with a poster, they can advertise who’s coming. That gives a guy a chance to go to town without a record being played every day on the radio.
Word of mouth is still the best advertising and if you do a good job, you’ll have a better crowd next time, then next year you play theaters, and so on. The system fights the hell out of it and tries to tell you that getting played on their radio station is the only way. There are several stations in any town, and if a guy really works and wants it enough, you can make your own record, sell it out of the trunk of your car, find a station who’ll play it, work a club, and work each town individually.
A lot of people I know have put their futures in the hands of a record company and that’s not very wise, because you’re only as good a major label as your next record and they’ll drop you like a hot potato and then what do you do?
EH: Sell your records out of the trunk of your car?
WN: Right!
EH: You’ve written so many classic country songs. Do you appreciate your own compositions as much as country fans do?
WN:Â Probably not. I’m sure I take a lot of them for granted. There’s a lot of my own songs I do every night, on stage that have the same special meaning to my audiences as certain songs (by other artists) that have touched me.
EH: You’ve recorded approximately 100 albums! Do you even remember all those songs.
WN: I normally do. Some nights I forget “Whiskey River,” but we do 40 or so a night and they’re not always the same. When I worked with Waylon, Kris and Johnny, I felt like I retired! I was only working one-fourth of the time with my corner of the stage, my monitor, with the words — I felt like Frank Sinatra!
EH: Do you ever play a song, the crowd goes notes, and wonder, “Why are they screaming for THAT one?”
WN: No, because the ones they really like every night, I like, too, like “On the Road Again.” Or “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” — I didn’t write it, but it’s still a great song. “Always On My Mind” — I didn’t write that one, either, but I really enjoy singing it. The audience knows that, and they like seeing somebody enjoying what they do.
EH: Are you still in touch with President Jimmy Carter and his family?
WN: Occasionally. I talk to him about one thing or another, usually his Habitat for Humanity program. We’ve done things together. He’s a great man. He’d still have my vote.
EH: Were you invited to Amy Carter’s wedding?
WN: No, I wasn’t. But, I move around so much, I’m sure [the invitation] is lying around somewhere!
EH:Â I hear you’re cutting a reggae album.
WN: I’ve already recorded it. It probably won’t be out until the first of the year. Island is using this year to still work Spirit. It surprised me when Don Was brought up the reggae idea. I wasn’t sure how it would sound until we went to the studio and cut one of my obscure ’60s songs that i think only he remembered, with a reggae band. It sounded so good, we thought maybe we should try to put out an album. So we went to Jamaica, talked to Island, I had Spirit with me, and we just did it.
EH: Nashville still doesn’t get it, do they?
WN: Not really, but Island does and that’s the big difference. Label Chairman Chris Blackwell got it immediately, never hesitated. It was completely produced, finished product. All he had to do was put it out and advertise. They’ve-done a great job. I had been presented with problems with “Just One Love” and “Moonlight Becomes You” and fortunately there’s Justice Records. If Island hadn’t gotten it, I’d have probably gone to Justice (in Texas) or kept looking.
EH: Is it difficult coming to terms with people thinking you’re great?
WN: No, but I used to think so. Now, thought, I can completely understand it. Leon Russell — remember him? — once had people at a fevered pitch as only he can do. It was right after he put together the “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” tour for Joe Cocker. The first time I saw him, playing to tens of thousands every night, he stopped and said, “Be careful of who you let get to you.” It’s a responsibility, a highly electrical period with everyone’s emotions out there.
EH: Farm Aid has a website. Are you into the computer onling thing?
WN: No, that’s beyond me. There’s one on the bus, the house, the office and, fortunately, someone knows all about it. You can’t do that and golf! It’s like fishing — there’s no time to fish AND golf. Computers? That’s completely out of the question. I’m not going for it.
EH: You recently won the Living Legend Award. What does that mean to you?
WN: [laughs] After the show, I asked them, “How do you find someone every year?” Do they go through a list and ask, “Who’s living? Give me the legend list?” I dont’ know. I guess it means, “We’re glad you’re still alive.”
EH: Will we see another Highwayman tour?
WN: Probably not. It’s not likely we’ll tour… this week. We may all tour individually, the four of us, but not this year. “Ever” is a long time, putting out the word that it’s over forever, but Waylon wants it that way.
EH: Maybe Sinatra could stand in.
WN: He’d be a good one. Or Billy Joe Shaver. Or Merle Haggard. Or none of the above. Give me that legends list!
EH: Does it really matter to you what critics think?
WN: Not really. For most of ’em, their daddy’s got ’em there jobs anyway. Otherwise, they’d be out on the streets selling drugs. Critics are like the Bitch Box we had in the Air Force. Any complaints, you wrote them down, you put them in the box. It wouldn’t help at all, but you could bitch freely. That’s a critic.