Willie

This Rolling Stone profile of Willie Nelson is pretty great, even if magazines should not refer to their own work as “definitive,” which is the equivalent of talking about your own integrity since evidently we can just judge ourselves objectively these days.

Willie is a deserving legend and I say very little negative about his music. I do think that his love of marijuana has come to dominate discussions of the man who wrote “Crazy” and “Hello Walls” and “Night Life” and so many other definitive songs, not to mention full albums like Phases and Stages and Red Headed Stranger. Of course all of that was a very long time ago and Willie started resting on his laurels a bit by the late 1970s, not writing too many songs after that and certainly not writing songs on the quality level of the first half of his career. But then he didn’t have to. When the world is at your fingertips, as it was for Willie in the last 40 years (IRS notwithstanding), why try? But when you are in your mid-30s, kind of a mess as a person, and still holding onto the dream of making it in Nashville, yeah, you are going to write “Funny How Time Slips Away.” But I do wish that he wasn’t something of a joke for his weed smoking. The article certainly engages that side of him and maybe for good reason, since its not like he has hidden it.

Overall, there are some great stories and crazy stuff in the article. Willie worked as a plumber’s assistant in Eugene? Why did he end up there for awhile? And the number of country singers who spent time in the Pacific Northwest for random reasons is really quite high, most notably Loretta Lynn, whose worthless husband dragged her out there just as she was getting started as a singer. Buck Owens was working up there for awhile too. Willie’s drummer Paul English was a pimp? Whoa. On the other hand, English knew how to handle the rednecks which Bee Spears and Mickey Raphael struggled with during those transitional years in the 70s. Willie probably needed a roughneck in the band somewhere given the craziness.

Anyway, lots of laughs here and well worth a read. Also, check out some footage of this Willie show on the first ever episode of Austin City Limits in 1974. This is great stuff.