Based on VH1's phenomenally successful series 'Behind the Music' this is the second in a series of books that offers more interviews, photos and related information than in the original one-hour show. Here is just some of what the companion book to WILLIE NELSON will feature: a complete biography, hardscabble beginnings in Abbott, Texas; early marriages and selling his first songs; his breakthrough songs of 'Family Bible' and 'Night Life'. The hits: he writes 'Crazy' for Patsy Cline, 'Hello Walls' for Faron Young, and 'Funny How Time Slips Away' for Billy Walker. The years of the Red-Headed Stranger and superstardom; The Outlaw years, with a cast including country music's greats; Farm Aid and Willie's own IRS problems.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Clint Richmond is the author of the New York Times bestseller SELENA!. He has written for People and other magazines. He lives in Austin, Texas.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One
He's "the redheaded stranger" with one of the most recognized faces and voices in the world. He prides himself on being a musical and sometimes cultural outlaw, but he once went into business with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to pay off a multimillion-dollar tax debt.
Sixty tumultuous years have passed since Willie Hugh Nelson picked out his first chord on a guitar ordered from the Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog.
His struggles and triumphs through those three-score years have made Willie a legend, who has been described by one of his many chroniclers as a "living museum." He has become the workingman's metaphor for everything American -- with his life reflecting both the dreams and failings of our society during the last half of the twentieth century.
Now, at the beginning of a new century, Willie is old enough and financially secure enough to slow down and enjoy his extended family of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren on his sprawling Texas Hill Country ranch. Yet he is more likely to be found rolling down the highway aboard his tour bus, Honeysuckle Rose III, en route to another benefit performance or fan-packed concert.
Willie Nelson is one of the original country music outlaws who defied Nashville's rules three decades ago to cross over into pop and rock'n'roll. The American music scene and most contemporary musicians are richer for his daring; and his extraordinary achievements as both singer and songwriter have opened new venues to the present generation of musicians in both country and popular music.
He has written dozens of chart-topping songs in both musical genres, released more than two hundred albums, played starring or cameo roles in thirty movies and documentaries, and won nearly every music award America has to offer, in every field he has chosen to enter.
His live performances are sold out around the world, with crowds of loyal fans following him to his shows and concerts. Yet Willie remains just "Willie" (his real name), a humble man who has rarely met an underdog he would not adopt or a cause he would not champion. He is the best friend the American farmer ever had, with his Farm Aid benefits raising millions of dollars each year.
Willie Nelson is more than just the sum of his musical success. In his eclectic life he made his fame and fortune as a songwriter, guitar-picker, singer, and movie actor. But he's also known common labor, having tried his hand as a cotton picker, airman, encyclopedia salesman, Bible salesman, pig farmer, cattle rancher, saddle-maker, plumber, vacuum-cleaner salesman, and disc jockey.
He has tasted life from the bottom to top, down again, and back up. Since fleeing the farm in his teens, he has experienced huge and heady career successes, rock-bottom ruin and tax debt, recording busts to chart-breaking singles and albums, and a life mixed with personal blessings and heartbreaking tragedy. His downs have been so low they would have destroyed lesser men, but Willie has come back time and again, a reinvented, reinvigorated man on a mission.
Along the way, this "stranger" has shared the whole range of his emotional roller-coaster ride with America through his songs. Many of his greatest hits have been identified as autobiographical -- written and performed to amplify incidents from his own life.
"On the Road Again" is the theme song from his largely autobiographical movie, Honeysuckle Rose. The lyrics surely represent one of his most concise descriptions of a large part of his life:
On the road again
I just can't wait to get on the road again
The life I love is making music with
my friends
I just can't wait to get on the road again.
Other songs that have stirred millions of Americans are not so lighthearted, but are nevertheless a big part of Willie Nelson. Fans and friends have opined that "She Is Gone" was a lament over the death of his mother. "Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground" is often seen as a grief-filled response to the tragic death of his son. Willie Nelson's stoic, weathered face rarely reveals his inner feelings. Since he almost never speaks of such personal tragedies, many suspect that his songs are his only expressions of his own heartbreaks. And his music speaks the language of everyman, telling stories of success and failure, joy and sorrow, love and loss.
Like one of his early idols, Frank Sinatra, whose radio crooning inspired Willie in his youth, Nelson can say "I did it my way." His lifestyle has sometimes been controversial. But he has remained too close to the Protestant, common-man roots of his upbringing to go too far astray for too long.
After finishing an exhausting performance, Willie -- much to the chagrin of his entourage -- frequently delays the departure of his crew to wade into the audience, spending long periods listening to the problems and hopes of his fans.
For all his fame, Willie was no instant success. It took a lifetime of hard work, liberally sprinkled with pure old-fashioned tenacity, to gradually earn him the recognition of the entertainment industry in the form of honors and awards. But once his musical genius was finally acknowledged, his lofty place in American music has endured.
Even though his talents as a songwriter had gained the respect of his peers, recognition of his contribution was slow in coming. In 1973, Willie was inducted into the Songwriters Association Hall of Fame in Nashville. He was forty years old and had been writing and performing songs for more than two decades. Billboard did not select him as a top album artist until 1976, twenty years after he cut his first record.
The prestigious National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences has awarded Willie five Grammys® for best recordings in various country music categories. The Academy also presented Nelson with its Living Legends Award.
Closer to home, Willie has received seven annual awards for singles, duets, or albums from the Country Music Association, and has, on one occasion, been named CMA's Entertainer of the Year.
The Academy of Country Music also named him entertainer of the year and has awarded Nelson six of its top annual awards for singles or albums.
Perhaps more meaningful than all the others was the recognition that Willie Nelson attained at the age of sixty, when he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, joining many of the legendary greats and music-makers who had influenced his own contributions to America's music.
But it was not always so for the redheaded stranger from a tiny farming town in Central Texas. Willie was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth, nor surrounded by anything like the bounty of platinum and gold records that would hang on his walls someday.
Copyright © 2000 by Viacom International Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Just try to beat The Red Headed Stranger...,
By
This review is from: Willie Nelson (VH1 Behind the Music) (Library Binding)
This book ,while covering Willie's whole career, fills out the part of his career which mainly came after the autobiography written in 1988.It was the time when the tax problems seemed unbeatable.However ;the Government could no more beat him than could the Nashville establishment.In the end he would be honored by both of them."If he had been spinning his wheels before coming to Austin,Willie found traction just down the road from his old hometown.At an age when many entertainers are considered past their prime,Willie was starting a new movement.He had reinvented himself and created a new niche for country music in the process. Willie was once again about to prove that he would not be restrained by some preordained set of rules written by someone else". Not only that,he did it in Austin without the 'help' of Nashville.Yes ,in the end Nashville heaped rewards on him and finally recognized his talents.This was not by choice,but by necessity;because the fans were way ahead of them. An excellent book on a Living Legend;and includes many excellent photographs. As to his wives: "There's no such thing as an ex-wife,there's only additional wives"."I've learned that.And that's not necassarily a negative,either,because I'd rather have an ex-wife who's a friend than an ex-wife who's not a friend".
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
VH1 Behind the Music Willie Nelson,
By
This review is from: Willie Nelson (VH1 Behind the Music) (Library Binding)
When I first saw the book it drew my attention to the cover becasue of the colors they used and the picture on the front. This book did not only show how hard it was for Willie and His older sister living with their grandma and grandpa, but how much Willie and his sister had a love for music. Willie is a great song writer and singer and I think that he will be singing untill he is 92 (72 now). Overall The book was great and i really enjoyed reading it. I would reccomend it to anyone who loves Willie, Country Music or Smoking Doobies.
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