With a six-decade career and 200 plus albums, iconic Texan Willie Nelson is the creative genius behind the historic recordings of “Crazy,” “Hello Walls,” “Red Headed Stranger” and “Stardust.” He has earned every conceivable award as a musician and amassed reputable credentials as an author, actor and activist.
In 2010 he released “Willie Nelson’s Country Music”, produced by award-winning T Bone Burnett and it received a Grammy nomination for Best Americana Album. In 2011 Nelson’s album releases included “Here We Go Again: Celebrating the Genius of Ray Charles”, a 12 song collection with Wynton Marsalis and Norah Jones as well as “Remember Me: Vol. 1”, his hand-picked selections of country music’s most definitive songs. Released this past May is “Heroes”, his first album for Legacy Recordings that showcases new songs and deep country classics. The album spent five weeks at #1 on the Americana Radio Chart. In November, his latest book, “Roll Me Up And Smoke Me When I Die”, hit shelves and landed in the Top 10 on The New York Times’ best-seller list. A road journal written in Nelson’s inimitable, homespun voice, the book is a deeply personal look into the heart and soul of a unique man and one of the greatest artists of our time.
Born in 1933 in Abbott, Texas, Willie Hugh Nelson and his sister were raised by their grandparents who encouraged both children to play music. He began writing songs in elementary school and played in bands as a teenager. After high school, Nelson served a short stint in the Air Force, but music was a constant pull.
By the mid 1950s, he was working as a country deejay in Fort Worth while continuing to pursue a musical career, recording independently and playing nightclubs. He sold some of his original compositions, including “Family Bible” which became a hit for Claude Gray in 1960.
That success and others convinced Nelson to move to Nashville where his songwriting talents were quickly embraced. In 1961, he had a breakthrough year when “Hello Walls” became a nine-week #1 for Faron Young and Patsy Cline’s version of “Crazy” became an instant classic.
In 1962 Nelson scored his first two Top 10 hits as a recording artist but struggled for another breakthrough the remainder of the decade. In 1973, he rebounded back with “Shotgun Willie” and the 1974 follow-up “Phases & Stages” helped him build a loyal following.
“Red Headed Stranger” became one of country’s most unlikely hits in 1975. The acoustic concept album vaulted Nelson to country music’s top ranks. Nelson’s convention-busting stardom, combined with the concurrent popularity of maverick Waylon Jennings, prompted journalist Hazel Smith to dub the trend “Outlaw Music” and a movement was underway. RCA Records seized on the phenomenon, compiling an album of previously recorded material from Nelson, Jennings, Tompall Glaser and Jessi Colter. “Wanted: The Outlaws” spawned the Nelson/Jennings duet “Good Hearted Woman” and quickly became the best selling album country had ever seen.
A fixture on the singles charts over the next several years, Nelson’s star rose even further with the 1978 releases Waylon & Willie and Stardust. The former included “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys” while the latter, a collection of pop standards, further exhibited Nelson’s ability to defy expectations on the way to tremendous success.
Nelson’s stardom soon translated to another medium with roles in feature films including THE ELECTRIC HORSEMAN, HONEYSUCKLE ROSE, STAGECOACH and many more. And the hits kept coming.”On The Road Again” reached the top of the charts in 1981, “Always On My Mind” was a crossover smash in 1982 and a duet with Latin pop star Julio Iglesias, “To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before,” raced up the charts in 1984.
Nelson enlisted Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash for the “Highwaymen” album, released in 1985. That same year he founded Farm Aid, an organization dedicated to championing the cause of family farmers. Farm Aid’s annual televised concert special raises funds and, along with Willie’s annual Fourth of July Picnic, has become a cornerstone of his live touring schedule.
The 1990s brought more success and one notable challenge. A $16.7 million bill from the IRS forced Nelson to sell many of his assets, including several homes, and resulted in the release of “The IRS Tapes: Who’ll Buy My Memories”. Nelson cleared the debt by 1993, and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame that same year.
Enshrinement didn’t slow his creative energy, and the decade produced artistic triumphs including “Across The Borderline”. The album featured Bob Dylan, Sinead O’Connor and Paul Simon among its many guests. Releases that followed included “Spirit”, “Teatro” and an instrumental-focused album titled “Night and Day”.
The 2000s brought “Run That By Me One More Time”, “The Essential Willie Nelson” and “Willie Live & Kickin’” featuring Norah Jones and Toby Keith, with whom Nelson performed his #1 single, “Beer For My Horses.” The reggae-tinged “Countryman” (2005), “Songbird” (2006) and “You Don’t Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker” (2006) earned Nelson a Grammy nomination for Best Country Album and augmented an esteemed career.
“Last Of The Breed” (2007), a two-disc, 22-song collection of newly recorded versions of country classics by three of the genre’s most important and influential artists – Haggard, Nelson and Ray Price segued into “Moment Of Forever” (2008) and Nelson’s 75th anniversary box set “One Hell Of A Ride” (2008). That same year his collaboration with Wynton Marsalis, “Two Men With The Blues” debuted at #20. Additional releases include “Willie & The Wheel”, “Naked Willie” and the jazz standard “American Classic”.
And as if a canvas of words and music and a parade of awards wasn’t enough, Willie became a fiction author with the release of the classic western tale “A Tale Out of Luck”, co-authored with Mike Blakely.
Continuing to be a champion for traditional country music, Nelson is the namesake for the exclusive Willie’s Roadhouse channel on SiriusXM Radio, which features a mix of his hand-picked favorite songs and artists, broadcasts of the Grand Ole Opry and various Willie performances throughout the year, including the annual Farm Aid concert.
In the ever-expanding array of country music stars and idols, Merle Haggard walks in no man’s shadow. Instead, he casts a far-reaching shadow of his own with 65 albums, over 40 #1 singles and top Grammy, AMA, CMA, ACM awards. He is revered as the quintessential country artist and rural America’s Renaissance man.
Haggard’s life path has never been easy, nor has much of it been pretty, as aired in his 1981 book, “Sing Me Back Home”. Born in Bakersfield, California, Haggard’s love for the wandering songs of Jimmie Rodgers led to an errant passion for the gleaming, endless railroad tracks and the siren song of slow freights and hobo jungles. After numerous brushes with the law, he landed a three-year stint in the notorious San Quentin Penitentiary.
Post-prison life, a typical tale of scratching out a meager survival also became the beginning of his atypical musical career. Although he had made his stage debut at 15 sitting in on a Lefty Frizzell performance, it wasn’t until after San Quentin that Merle joined a band as rhythm/bass guitarist and began to sing in the clubs and the dives of the infamous “beer can hill” area of Bakersfield.
Haggard’s first single was “Singing My Heart Out,” but it was in 1963 that he eventually broke into the top 20 of Billboard’s country charts with his first national hit, “Sing A Sad Song.” Since then, the country charts have been his second home. His next few singles — “(All My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers,” “Swinging Doors” and “The Bottle Let Me Down” — all landed within the Top 10. In 1966 he entered the #1 spot for the first time with “I’m A Lonesome Fugitive,” and he won his first Top Male Vocalist of the Year award from the Academy of Country Music.
In 1968, he released the #1 single “The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde.” Its B-side, “Today I Started Loving You Again,” also unexpectedly went on to become one of the most important and lucrative songs of his career. In 1969, his social commentary “Okie From Muskogee,” released during the height of national conflict over Vietnam, became his most controversial song, yet (and, another #1 hit).
During the ‘70s, he penned a string of chart-topping singles including “Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink” and “Rainbow Stew.” In 1981, he added more #1 plaques to his wall for “Yesterday’s Wine,” the title single from his powerful album duet with country music titan, George Jones. That same year he released another landmark album with another legendary country singer-songwriter (and a longtime friend), Willie Nelson; the title cut from that album, “Poncho and Lefty,” was also a #1 record for Haggard.
In addition to his legendary musicianship, Haggard was the first country artist ever to appear on the cover of Downbeat, one of the nation’s most influential jazz publications. His music was part of the Apollo 16 mission to the moon via a custom recording specially requested by the crew and he’s an actor who has appeared in the Clint Eastwood film BRONCO BILLY as well as several dramatic roles on TV.
Willie Nelson & Merle Haggard will be at the Seminole Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, Florida on Thursday February 7, 2013.
Willie Nelson & Merle Haggard will be at the Seminole Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, Florida on Thursday February 7, 2013.
