Tonight and tomorrow night at the Hollywood Bowl, an array of musical stars that spans many eras and genres, will come together to celebrate the 90th birthday of one of American music's most enduring and versatile performers.
The likes of Neil Young, Beck, George Strait, Stephen Stills, Kris Kristofferson, Dwight Yoakam, Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crowe, and even Snoop Dogg, will all be there to wish Willie Nelson, activist, actor and king of 'outlaw' country, a happy birthday.
In the beginning...
Willie Hugh Nelson was born in Abbott, central Texas, on 29 April 1933 (although the doctor recorded his birth date as the 30th). His father, Ira, was a mechanic, and his mother, Myrle, left soon after he was born. Ira remarried and moved away, leaving young Willie and sister Bobbie to be raised by his grandparents.
His grandfather bought him his first guitar at the age of six, and he often sang gospel music in church with Bobbie. He had written his first song by age seven, and was playing with the Bohemian Polka band at the age of nine. In fact, Nelson was earning cash from music by the time he was thirteen, playing in the local dance halls and taverns, all the way through High School.
At Abbott High School, as well as the music, Nelson was very athletic; he played half-back on the football team, guard on the basketball team, and shortstop in baseball. But it was music that dominated his life already. He joined his brother-in-law Bud Fletcher's band, The Texans, who got a regular Sunday morning spot on KHBR in Hillsboro.
In 1950, Willie joined the Air Force, but lasted only nine months before being medically discharged for back issues. 1952 saw him marry Martha Matthews, in a marriage that would apparently be punctuated by her violence towards him. Between 1954 and 1956, Nelson studied agriculture at Baylor University in Waco, but dropped out before completion. He would have a number of jobs over the coming months, including nightclub bouncer, saddle maker and tree trimmer.
He joined the Johnny Bush band and also became a DJ at KBOP in Pleasanton, where he also made his first two recordings - The Storm Has Just Begun and When I've Sung My Last Hillbilly Song. He was rejected by SARG Records.
On the road
Nelson left Texas, first heading to San Diego, but he found no work there, so hitchhiked towards Portland, Oregon, where his mother now lived.
While with KVAN in Vancouver, Washington, he recorded No Place For Me in 1956. Then he was off again - this time to Springfield, Missouri, where he tried to get on 50s hit tv show, Ozark Jubilee. A brief stint as a dishwasher and he was heading back to Texas, to Waco and then Fort Worth. He sold bibles and vacuum cleaners for a year or so, and then Encyclopaedia Americana, door to door.
Family Bible: https://youtu.be/e0WLBOELkhM
1958 saw the birth of his son Billy and a family move to Houston. A $50 loan from Larry Butler allowed him to rent an apartment. He recorded Man With The Blues / The Storm Has Just Begun and What A Way To Live / Misery Mansion, for D Records, before being hired as a guitar instructor. His boss, Paul Buskirk, purchased two of Nelson's songs, Family Bible for $50 and Night Life for $150. Family Bible became a hit for Claude Gray in 1960.
Nelson tried to break into Nashville in 1960, but no label would sign him. Then his luck started to change, when he met songwriter Hank Cochran, who got him signed to the Pamper Music publishing company. He then joined Ray Price's touring band, The Cherokee Cowboys, on bass.
Debut album and success at last
The early 60s saw a number of Willie Nelson tunes become hits for other artists, including Funny How Time Slips Away for Billy Walker, Pretty Paper for Roy Orbison and of course, most famously, Crazy for Patsy Cline.
Crazy: https://youtu.be/koLslv35kVQ
Nelson was now signed to Liberty Records and in August 1961, recorded Willingly, a duet with future wife Shirley Collie (they would be married in Vegas in 1963), and Touch Me.
His first album, .... And Then I Wrote, came out in September 1962. That same year, Nelson and Matthews got divorced, paving the way for his marriage to Collie. A brief stint at Monument Records in early 1964 saw only one single, I Never Cared For You, before he moved on to RCA Victor that autumn for a reported $10,000 per year (with the move helped by Chet Atkins).
The rest of the 1960s seems to have been some good years for Nelson. In April 1965, he released album number two, Country Willie - His Own Songs, and that same year got his first appearance at the Grand Ole Opry. He also made another important friendship, with Waylon Jennings, who he would often collaborate with.
The 1970s started off badly though, with a divorce from Collie, followed by the destruction of his Tennessee ranch in December 1970, when it burned down. He moved back to Texas, to Bandera, where he ended up marrying Connie Koepke. What turned out to be his last single for RCA, Mountain Dew, came out in April 1972. With huge disappointment in the ways that his albums had failed to make much chart headway, Nelson said he was retiring from music.
But a move to Austin seemed to rejuvenate him. He played the Dripping Springs Reunion Festival, which inspired him to put on his own Fourth of July Picnic, which became an annual event. He negotiated his way out of his RCA contract for $14,000 and signed with Atlantic for $25,000 a year instead. He also formed himself a backing band, The Family. Shotgun Willie followed in May of 1973, and Phases And Stages in 1974, which included the hit Bloody Mary Morning.
He was the subject of the pilot episode of PBS's now legendary music tv show, Austin City Limits. He moved record companies again, this time to Columbia Records, who allowed him the creative control that he desired. 1975's Red Headed Stranger met with critical acclaim and featured the number one single, Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain, a cover of Fred Rose's 1945 song.
Acting and Outlaws
1979 saw Nelson make his acting debut, in The Electric Horseman. More followed, with roles in Honeysuckle Rose (1980) with Diane Canon, Thief (1981) with James Caan, and the western Barbarossa (1982) with Gary Busey.
The Outlaws was a collaboration between Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser, and they released an album, Wanted! The Outlaws in 1976, which became country music's first platinum selling album. 'Outlaw' country became a bit of a movement, in reaction to the traditional conservative style that country had been known for before.
Highwaymen, Farm Aid and Beyond
Nelson was part of another leftfield country supergroup, when the Highwaymen got together in the mid 1980s, consisting of Nelson with Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson.
Highwayman (The Highwaymen): https://youtu.be/bMdeg-WKt1U
1985 saw the start of Farm Aid, which Nelson helped establish with Neil Young and John Mellencamp, to help raise the profile of family farms in the States. The first concert included those three, plus Bob Dylan, BB King, Billy Joel and Roy Orbison.
In 1991, Nelson married for the fourth time, this time to Annie D'Angelo.
Nelson would go on to establish himself as a really wide ranging and eclectic musician, working with people from across the entire spectrum. There was Phish, Johnny Cash, Ringo Starr (Nelson sang vocals on Write One For Me, on the Ringo Rama album), Toots & The Maytals (True Love) and Toby Keith (on Beer For My Horses). He would go on to put out his own reggae album, when Countryman came out in 2005 (which included Toots Hibbert as a guest). More recently, he has also worked with Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeah's) on a cover of Under Pressure.
Under Pressure (Willie Nelson & Karen O): https://youtu.be/ETP3nreNCl4
Nelson has long been a supporter of LGBTQ+ rights and in 2006 did a version of Ned Soldette's Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond Of Each Other.
He seems to have lost none of his drive and ability as he gets older. Last year, writing in the LA Times about a live performance in Pasadena, Mikael Wood said, "Nelson's singing was a marvel of musicianly instinct, with unexpected blues notes and little swerves of tempo that thoroughly blurred the lines among country, jazz and soul music."
Happy Birthday Willie!