Willie Nelson Tickets

About Willie Nelson

Willie Hugh Nelson, 30 April 1933, Abbott, Texas, USA. Following their mother's desertion and the death of their father, Nelson and his sister Bobbie were raised by their grandparents. Bobbie was encouraged to play the piano and Willie the guitar. By the age of seven he was writing cheating-heart-style songs. "Maybe I got 'em from soap operas on the radio," he said, "but I've always seemed to see the sad side of things." Bobbie married the fiddle player Bud Fletcher, and they both played in his band. When Fletcher booked western swing star Bob Wills, the 13-year-old Willie Nelson joined him for a duet. After graduation he enlisted in the US Air Force, but was invalided out with a bad back, which has continued to plague his career to the present day. In 1953 Nelson began a traumatic marriage in Waco, Texas. "Martha was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian," says Nelson, "and every night was like Custer's last stand." When they moved to Fort Worth, Texas, Nelson was criticized for playing beer-joints and inappropriately evangelizing - he fortunately gave up the latter. A Salvation Army drummer, Paul English, has been his drummer ever since, and is referred to in "Me And Paul" and "Devil In A Sleepin' Bag". Nelson's success lasted until the late 1980s, when some trouble with the IRS landed him in a number of stuffed-crust pizza commercials and a cameo role in the film Half Baked smoking his beloved joints. When the day is done, Nelson can easily be considered a bona fide legend.

Nelson's first record, "Lumberjack", was recorded in Vancouver, Washington, in 1956 and was written by Leon Payne. Payne, then a radio disc jockey, advertised the records for sale on the air. For $1, the listener received the record and an autographed 8 x 10 inch photo of Nelson; 3,000 copies were sold by this method. In Houston he sold "Family Bible" to a guitar scholar for $50 and when it became a country hit for Claude Gray in 1960, Nelson's name was not on the label. He also sold "Night Life" for $150 to the director of the same school; Ray Price made it a country hit and there have now been over 70 other recordings. Nelson moved to Nashville where his offbeat, nasal phrasing and dislike of rhinestone trimmings made him radically different from other country musicians. He recorded demos in 1961, which he later rescued from a fire. The demos were spread over three collections, Face Of A Fighter, Diamonds In The Rough and Slow Down Old World, but they are often repackaged in an attempt to pass off old material as new. These one-paced collections feature little to attract new fans, as the songs are either bleak, very bleak or unbearably bleak. From time to time, Nelson has re-recorded these songs for other albums.

In 1961 three of Nelson's country songs crossed over to the US pop charts: Patsy Cline's "Crazy", Faron Young's "Hello Walls" and Jimmy Elledge's "Funny How Time Slips Away". Ray Price employed Nelson to play bass with his band, the Cherokee Cowboys, not knowing that he had never previously played the instrument. Nelson bought a bass, practiced all night and showed up the next day as a bass player. Touring put further pressures on his marriage and he was divorced in 1962. The following year Nelson had his first country hits as a performer, first in a duet with Shirley Collie, "Willingly", and then on his own with "Touch Me". His 40 tracks recorded for Liberty Records were top-heavy on strings, but they included the poignant "Half A Man" and the whimsical "River Boy". He also wrote a witty single for Joe Carson, "I Gotta Get Drunk". When Liberty dropped their country performers, Nelson moved to Monument. He gave Roy Orbison "Pretty Paper", which made the UK Top 10 in 1964 and became Nelson's most successful composition in the UK. Some Monument tracks were revamped for The Winning Hand, which gave the misleading impression that Nelson had joined forces with Kris Kristofferson, Brenda Lee and Dolly Parton for a double album.

In 1965 Nelson married Shirley Collie and took up pig-farming in Ridgetop, Tennessee. During the same year Ray Price refused to record any more of Nelson's songs after an accident when Nelson shot his fighting rooster. However, they eventually joined forces for an album. Chet Atkins produced some fine albums for Nelson on RCA Records, including a tribute to his home state, Texas In My Soul. Nelson was only allowed to record with his own musicians on the live Country Music Concert album, which included an emotional "Yesterday" and a jazzy "I Never Cared For You". He recorded around 200 tracks for the label, including well-known songs of the day such as "Both Sides Now", "Help Me Make It Through The Night" and, strangely, the UK comedy team Morecambe And Wise's theme song, "Bring Me Sunshine". Yesterday's Wine remains his finest RCA album, although it begins somewhat embarrassingly, with Nelson talking to God. Nelson wrote seven of the songs in one night, under the influence of alcohol and drugs; "What Can You Do To Me Now?", in particular, acutely indicated his anguish and instability.

During 1970 his show business lawyer, Neil Rushen, thought Nelson should record for Atlantic Records in New York. The singer used his own band, supplemented by Doug Sahm and Larry Gatlin. Atlantic did not feel that The Troublemaker was right for the label and it only surfaced after he had moved to Columbia Records. Shotgun Willie was closer to rock music and included Leon Russell's "A Song For You" and the reflective "Sad Songs And Waltzes". Phases And Stages (1974), made in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, examined the break-up of a marriage from both sides - the woman's ("Washing The Dishes") and the man's ("It's Not Supposed To Be That Way"). Nelson also recorded a successful duet with Tracy Nelson (no relation) of "After The Fire Is Gone". He toured extensively and his bookings at a rock venue, the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, showed that he might attract a new audience. Furthermore, Waylon Jennings' hit with "Ladies Love Outlaws" indicated a market for "outlaw country" music. The term separated them from more conventional country artists, and, with his pigtail and straggly beard, Nelson no longer looked like a country performer. Ironically, they were emphasizing the very thing from which country music was trying to escape - the cowboy image.

In 1975 Nelson signed with Columbia and wanted to record a lengthy, old ballad, "Red Headed Stranger". His wife suggested that he split the song into sections and fit other songs around it. This led to an album about an old-time preacher and his love for an unfaithful woman. The album consisted of Willie's voice and guitar and Bobbie's piano. Columbia thought it was too low-key, too religious and needed strings. They were eventually persuaded to release it as it was and Red Headed Stranger (1975) has since become a country classic. Nelson's gentle performance of the country standard "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain" was a number 1 country hit and also made number 21 on the US pop charts in 1975. With brilliant marketing, RCA then compiled Wanted! The Outlaws with Jennings, Nelson, Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser. It became the first country album to go platinum and included a hit single, "Good Hearted Woman', in which Jennings" thumping beat and Nelson's sensitivity were combined beautifully (the 1996 Anniversary reissue added nine tracks, plus the brand new Steve Earle song "Nowhere Road", sung by Nelson and Jennings). The first Waylon And Willie (1978) album included Ed Bruce's witty look at outlaw country, "Mammas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys", and two beautifully restrained Nelson performances, "If You Can Touch Her At All" and "A Couple More Years".