Willie Nelson
By All Music Guide
By All Music Guide
Nelson began performing music as a child growing up in Abbott, TX. After his father died and his mother ran away, Nelson and his sister Bobbie were raised by their grandparents, who encouraged both children to play instruments. Willie picked up the guitar, and by the time he was seven, he was already writing songs. Bobbie learned to play piano, eventually meeting -- and later marrying -- fiddler Bud Fletcher, who invited both of the siblings to join his band. Nelson had already played with Raychecks Polka Band, but with Fletcher, he acted as the groups frontman. Willie stayed with Fletcher throughout high school. Upon his graduation, he joined the Air Force but had to leave shortly afterward, when he became plagued by back problems. Following his disenrollment from the service, he began looking for full-time work. After he worked several part-time jobs, he landed a job as a country DJ at Fort Worths KCNC in 1954. Nelson continued to sing in honky tonks as he worked as a DJ, deciding to make a stab at recording career by 1956. That year, he headed to Vancouver, WA, where he recorded Leon Paynes Lumberjack. At that time, Payne was a DJ and he plugged Lumberjack on the air, which eventually resulted in sales of 3,000 -- a respectable figure for an independent single, but not enough to gain much attention. For the next few years, Willie continued to DJ and sing in clubs. During this time, he sold Family Bible to a guitar instructor for 50 dollars, and when the song became a hit for Claude Gray in 1960, Nelson decided to move to Nashville the following year to try his luck. Though his nasal voice and jazzy, off-center phrasing didnt win him many friends -- several demos were made and then rejected by various labels -- his songwriting ability didnt go unnoticed, and soon Hank Cochran helped Willie land a publishing contract at Pamper Music. Ray Price, who co-owned Pamper Music, recorded Nelsons Night Life and invited him to join his touring band, the Cherokee Cowboys, as a bassist.
Arriving at the beginning of 1961, Prices invitation began a watershed year for Nelson. Not only did he play with Price -- eventually taking members of the Cherokee Cowboys to form his own touring band -- but his songs also provided major hits for several other artists. Faron Young took Hello Walls to number one for nine weeks, Billy Walker made Funny How Time Slips Away into a Top 40 country smash, and Patsy Cline made Crazy into a Top Ten pop crossover hit. Earlier in the year, he signed a contract with Liberty Records and began releasing a series of singles that were usually drenched in strings. Willingly, a duet with his then-wife Shirley Collie, became a Top Ten hit for Nelson early in 1962, and it was followed by another Top Ten single, Touch Me, later that year. Both singles made it seem like Nelson was primed to become a star, but his career stalled just as quickly as it had taken off, and he was soon charting in the lower regions of the Top 40. Liberty closed its country division in 1964, the same year Roy Orbison had a hit with Pretty Paper.
When the Monument recordings failed to become hits, Nelson moved to RCA Records in 1965, the same year he became a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Over the next seven years, Willie had a steady stream of minor hits, highlighted by the number 13 hit Bring Me Sunshine in 1969. Toward the end of his stint with RCA, he had grown frustrated with the label, who had continually tried to shoehorn him into the heavily produced Nashville sound. By 1972, he wasnt even able to reach the country Top 40. Discouraged by his lack of success, Nelson decided to retire from country music, moving back to Austin, TX, after a brief and disastrous sojourn into pig farming. Once he arrived in Austin, Nelson realized that many young ock fans were listening to country music along with the traditional honky tonk audience. Spotting an opportunity, Willie began performing again, scrapping his pop-oriented Nashville sound and image for a ock- and folk-influenced redneck outlaw image. Soon, he earned a contract with Atlantic Records.
Shotgun Willie (1973), Nelsons first album for Atlantic, was evidence of the shift of his musical style, and although it initially didnt sell well, it earned good reviews and cultivated a dedicated cult following. By the fall of 1973, his version of Bob Wills Stay All Night (Stay a Little Longer) had cracked the country Top 40. The following year, he delivered the concept album Phases and Stages, which increased his following even more with the hit singles Bloody Mary Morning and After the Fire Is Gone. But the real commercial breakthrough didnt arrive until 1975, when he severed ties with Atlantic and signed to Columbia Records, who gave him complete creative control of his records. Willies first album for Columbia, The Red Headed Stranger, was a spare concept album about a preacher, featuring only his guitar and his sisters piano. The label was reluctant to release with such stark arrangements, but they relented and it became a huge hit, thanks to Nelsons understated cover of Roy Acuffs Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.
Following the breakthrough success of The Red Headed Stranger as well as Waylon Jennings simultaneous success, outlaw country -- so named because it worked outside of the confines of the Nashville industry -- became a sensation, and RCA compiled the various-artists album Wanted: The Outlaws!, using material Nelson, Jennings, Tompall Glaser, and Jessi Colter had previously recorded for the label. The compilation boasted a number one single in the form of the newly recorded Jennings and Nelson duet Good Hearted Woman, which was also named the Country Music Associations single of the year. For the next five years, Nelson consistently charted on both the country and pop charts, with Remember Me, If Youve Got the Money Ive Got the Time, and Uncloudy Day becoming Top Ten country singles in 1976; I Love You a Thousand Ways and the Mary Kay Place duet Something to Brag About were Top Ten country singles the following year.
Nelson enjoyed his most successful year to date in 1978, as he charted with two very dissimilar albums. Waylon and Willie, his first duet album with Jennings, was a major success early in the year, spawning the signature song Mammas Dont Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys. Later in the year, he released Stardust, a string-augmented collection of pop standards produced by Booker T. Jones. Most observers believed that the unconventional album would derail Nelsons career, but it unexpectedly became one of the most successful records in his catalog, spending almost ten years in the country charts and eventually selling over four million copies. After the success of Stardust, Willie branched out into film, appearing in the Robert Redford movie #The Electric Horseman in 1979 and starring in #Honeysuckle Rose the following year. The latter spawned the hit On the Road Again, which became another one of Nelsons signature songs.
Willie continued to have hits throughout the early 80s, when he had a major crossover success in 1982 with a cover of Elvis Presleys hit Always on My Mind. The single spent two weeks at number one and crossed over to number five on the pop charts, sending the album of the same name to number two on the pop charts as well as quadruple-platinum status. Over the next two years, he had hit duet albums with Merle Haggard (1983s Poncho & Lefty) and Jennings (1982s WWII and 1983s Take It to the Limit), while To All the Girls Ive Loved Before, a duet with Latin pop star Julio Iglesias, became another major crossover success in 1984, peaking at number five on the pop charts and number one on the singles chart.
Following a string of number one singles in early 1985, including Highwayman, the first single from the Highwaymen, a supergroup he formed with Jennings, Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson, Nelsons popularity gradually began to erode. A new generation of artists had captured the attention of the country audience, which began to drastically cut into his own audience. For the remainder of the decade, he recorded less frequently and remained on the road; he also continued to do charity work, most notably ~Farm Aid, an annual concert that he founded in 1985 designed to provide aid to ailing farmers. While he career was declining, an old demon began to creep up on Willie: the IRS. In November of 1990, he was given a bill for 16.7 million dollars in back taxes. During the following year, almost all of his assets -- including several houses, studios, farms, and various properties -- were taken away, and to help pay his bill, he released the double album The IRS Tapes: Wholl Buy My Memories? Originally released as two separate albums, the records were marketed through television commercials, and all the profits were directed to the IRS. By 1993 -- the year he turned 60 -- his debts had been paid off, and he relaunched his recording career with Across the Borderline, an ambitious album produced by Don Was and featuring cameos by Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Paul Simon, Sinéad OConnor, David Crosby, and Kris Kristofferson. The record received strong reviews and became his first solo album to appear in the pop charts since 1985.
After the release of Across the Borderline, Nelson continued to work steadily, releasing at least one album a year and touring constantly. In 1993, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, but by that time, he had already become a living legend for all country music fans across the world. Signing to Island for 1996s Spirit, he resurfaced two years later with the critically acclaimed Teatro, produced by Daniel Lanois. Nelson followed up that success with the instrumental-oriented Night and Day a year later; Me and the Drummer and Milk Cow Blues followed in 2000. The Rainbow Connection, which featured an eclectic selection of old-time country favorites, appeared in spring 2001.
Amazingly prolific as a recording artist, Nelson released The Great Divide on Universal in 2002. A collection of his early-60s publishing demos for Pamper Music called Crazy: The Demo Sessions came out on Sugar Hill in 2003. Later in 2003 Nelson released Run That by Me One More Time, which reunited him with Ray Price and kicked off a relationship with Lost Highway Records. It Always Will Be and Outlaws and Angels both appeared on Lost Highway in 2004, followed by the release of Nelsons long-delayed attempt at a country- eggae fusion, Countryman, also on Lost Highway, in 2005. You Dont Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker arrived the following year.
