I got Starday, a little label in Houston run by Pappy Daily, to press up five hundred copies. They didn’t see it as a seller so I wound up paying for every last disc. It was up to me to sell the song on the air. And I did. I told my listeners, “For the low, low price of a measly dollar, I’ll send you a copy of Texas Willie Nelson’s latest release—the song ‘No Place for Me’ that you already love. But that’s not all. Call within the hour and I’ll include, free of charge, a genuine autographed eight-by-ten glossy photo of yours truly. How can you resist? You can’t. So don’t even try. Do yourself a favor, friends. Pick up that phone and let me hear from you. Do it now!”
Though the single was hardly a national hit, I did manage to sell out the first pressing and a few thousand more.
I was on a roll, but I remained unsatisfied. My restless nature was stirring me. Oregon was cool, but the Oregon market was small. Oregon was just one small corner of a wider world I needed to explore.
That need was validated in an unexpected way.
I was doing my show at the station one day, taking the listeners from the Everly Brothers’ “Bye Bye Love” to Webb Pierce’s “Honky Tonk Song” to Jerry Lee Lewis’s “Whole Lot of Shakin’ Going On,” when I heard someone say that Mae Axton had just arrived to say hello to the deejays. That news stopped me dead in my tracks.
Mrs. Axton worked for Colonel Parker, Elvis’s manager, and was promoting a Hank Snow tour. Snow had hired Elvis to open for him; it was Hank Snow who had hooked up the Colonel and Elvis. Mae Axton was in the middle of this mix. She had cowritten “Heartbreak Hotel,” Elvis’s first number one hit. I’d been reading about her in Billboard. She was a nationally known figure who enjoyed a first-rate reputation as a woman who knew songs and songwriting. At the end of my set, I immediately sought her out.
I’d been working on a song I thought had possibilities. It came from a deep place: Mama and Daddy Nelson’s home in Abbott and their abiding connection to the Good Book. The song was born out of my memory of hearing my sweet grandmother sing “Rock of Ages.” I called it “Family Bible.”
“Don’t mean to bother you, Mrs. Axton, but I’m a great admirer of your work. And I’m a songwriter myself.”
“What’s your name, son?” she asked.
“Willie Nelson.”
She was a well-spoken, well-dressed lady of confidence and composure. She had keen intelligent eyes and a straightforward but gentle demeanor.
“Weren’t you just on the air?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am. I was.”
“You’re from Texas, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“I heard it in your voice. Well, I hope tomorrow you’ll put in a good word for the Hank Snow show that’s coming to town.”
“It’ll be my pleasure.”
“Much appreciated. And when Hank’s here I’ll be sure and get him to come by the station.”
“I’d be honored to meet him.”
“Good meeting you, Willie.”
“Before you go, Mrs. Axton, there is one thing I’d like you to hear.”
“What’s that?”
“A song I wrote and sang. I made a little demo version—just me and the guitar—that I’d like to play for you. Will take only a minute.”
“I got a plane to catch, son.”
“I’d be much obliged.”
“All right. Go ahead and play it.”
I switched on the tape recorder. The words said,
There’s a family Bible on the table
Each page is torn and hard to read
But the family Bible on the table
Will ever be my key to memories
At the end of day when work was over
And when the evening meal was done
Dad would read to us from the family Bible
And we’d count our many blessings one by one
I can see us sittin’ round the table
When from the family Bible Dad would read
I can hear my mother softly singing rock of ages
Rock of ages cleft for me
Now this old world of ours is full of trouble
This old world would also better be
If we’d find more Bibles on the tables
And mothers singing rock of ages cleft for me
I can see us sittin’ round the table
When from the family Bible Dad would read
I can hear my mother softly singing rock of ages
Rock of ages rock of ages cleft for me
Mrs. Axton was moved. Her business manner melted. She looked at me like a mother. She asked me to sing a couple of other things. When I was through, in the softest voice imaginable she said, “Son, you have something.”
“I do?”
“You have a precious gift. I wish I had more time to spend with you because there’s more I can tell you. For now, just remember two things. The first is that you’re looking at a lady who, if she had half your writing talent, would be the happiest gal on earth. And secondly, if you’re to develop that talent, you can’t keep hiding out here in the Northwest. You’ve got to move on, son.”
“To where?”
“Maybe back to Texas. Texas is a big market, a good market. Texas is your home market. But as you know, the biggest market for a songwriter is Nashville. I believe that sooner or later you’re gonna have to go on to Nashville.”
Mrs. Axton’s words haunted me.
Back to Texas.
On to Nashville.
It was as though she saw my future in front of her. Because she was so clear in her pronouncement, I had to believe her. Besides, she was a well-respected figure on the national music scene. She went so far as to give me her unlisted number. She did more than encourage me. She actually said, “I could always raise a couple of hundred dollars to help you.”
I saw the conviction in her eyes. I felt her sincerity. Just based on the words of this wonderful woman, I knew what I had to do. For all my local success, I had to leave Oregon.
That evening I didn’t make my usual late-night rounds. I stayed home. I helped Martha put Lana and Susie to sleep before wandering out to the backyard alone.
The sky over Oregon isn’t as big as the sky over Texas, but it’s plenty big.
On a clear night like this you could reach up and touch the stars.
I wanted to touch a star. No doubt about it, I wanted to be a star. I wanted to glow. I wanted to shine.
I searched the vast sky for Sputnik, the Russian satellite that had just been launched. I wanted to see it circling the earth. I wanted to hitch a ride on the back of Sputnik and take a spin around the planet. I wanted to explore, to fly free, to move into dimensions I could only dream of.
I’d been writing songs since I was a kid. But the songs I’d been writing recently felt different. These songs felt serious. Mrs. Axton saw that seriousness.
“Songwriting,” she had said, “is serious business. And there’s no reason, son, why you can’t take that business by storm.”
Serious business, serious songs.
Was I ready to take a spin around the planet?
Was I ready to wholly commit myself and my life to my songs?
The answer was in the stars, but the stars weren’t talking. The stars were just winking and blinking and setting my restless soul on fire.
PART TWO
SONGS FALLING FROM THE SKY
Back to the Future
In the early nineties, the press I was reading couldn’t have been worse.
Texas Monthly, the state magazine that had once celebrated my music, ran an article titled “Poor Willie,” followed by “The IRS nailed him for millions, only to find that Willie Nelson had already given it all away.”
I didn’t bother to read it. I didn’t need to know how much I had given away to family and friends. If I had it, I gave it. And if I gave away too much, that was a helluva lot better than not giving away enough.
Looking back at the events preceding this financial burnou
t, I began to understand that the seeds to what was now being called my implosion were sowed in the seventies.
I look back at the seventies as the start of the cocaine blizzard that blew across the music business—and the rest of the country—creating havoc in its wake. I was one of the lucky ones. I tried coke and instinctively mistrusted the energy it generated. Others said the energy was positive; I found it poisonous. The drug boosted the ego to ungodly proportions. I use the word “ungodly” purposely because when most folks are jacked up on coke they get to believing that they’re God. With cocaine, there’s no room for a higher power. You become your own higher power. You’re under the illusion that you’re all-knowing, all-powerful, and invulnerable. In short, you become a raging asshole.
Early on, I restricted the use of coke in my band. I put out the word: “If you’re wired, you’re fired.” And that was it.
At the same time, I stuck to a judge-not-and-be-not-judged policy when it came to the wider world. My good buddy Waylon Jennings loved coke. I didn’t say anything. Let him love it. Waylon was a strong man with a strong will, a brilliant artist, and one of the best friends I’ve ever had.
It was through Waylon that I met a man named Neil Reshen, a street tough New York manager who, with Waylon as his client, took Nashville by storm. Because his other big client was Miles Davis, Neil already had a reputation as “the man who could manage the unmanageable.”
These were the days when Waylon was still in the clutches of the RCA Nashville establishment that demanded he sing certain songs a certain way. Neil put a stop to that. He backed down the establishment. Through Neil, Waylon was able to win back his artistic freedom. Neil also decimated the low royalty–low advance structure that typified Nashville. He renegotiated Waylon’s contract in a way that revolutionized the industry.
I was impressed.
“Talk to Neil, hoss,” said Waylon. “He can do for you what he did for me. You need a mad-dog manager like Neil Reshen. This man has no fear.”
Being something of a scoundrel myself, I’ve been attracted to scoundrels my whole life. Starting with Zeke Varnon, I’ve liked tracking the unsavory ways of unsavory characters. I have a high tolerance for miscreants. I get a kick out of watching a clever manipulator work the angles.
Neil was a super-clever manipulator. And starting in the early seventies, he began working for me.
Because I had already taken a stance as an antiestablishment artist, I thought, what the hell, I’ll hire me an antiestablishment manager.
I knew who he was. I knew his bulldog energy was put into a frenzied overdrive by all the coke he consumed. I knew he wasn’t a straight shooter. He’d do whatever he needed to do to get his artist what he thought his artist deserved.
Well, I was willing to be that artist. I was willing to put up with his blow-snorting ways… as long as he served my purpose, protected my artistic integrity, and made sure my financial house was in order.
“Count on me for all that, Willie,” said Neil, “and more. Count on me to take a bullet for you.”
“I’ve never been comfortable with a manager,” I told him, “because I’ve never wanted to be slowed down or contained.”
“I’ll never get in your way,” he said. “Matter of fact, I’m gonna make life easier for you. I’m gonna take the pressure of all those nagging money details off your mind. I’m setting it up so all you gotta focus on is music, music, music.”
“And my taxes?”
“Hell, Willie, that’s the easiest part. I’m a tax expert. I’ve got one of the best tax minds of anyone in the country.”
In the early nineties—when the shit hit the fan—I clearly remembered that conversation from the early seventies.
I also remembered that it was in the late seventies when I learned that Neil had filed tax extensions for me for the past four years—and never paid the taxes.
I remembered getting hit with a tax bill for millions of dollars and being told by Neil that my tax records had gone missing.
I remembered thinking, “Oh shit, the rottweiler I bought to protect me has ripped into my own ass.”
The thought crossed my mind:
If I don’t get hold of this tax thing, it could more than bite me. It could take me all the way down.
9
BACK TO COW TOWN
BEFORE I HEEDED THE ADVICE of Mae Axton—whose son Hoyt, by the way, would gain big stardom in the sixties—I gave KVAN, the Vancouver radio station, one last chance.
“All it’ll take to keep me,” I told the manager, “is another hundred dollars a week.”
The man just smiled a little smile, chuckled a little chuckle, and said, “Be careful that door doesn’t knock you on your ass on the way out.”
I could have bitten the bullet and gone to Nashville right then and there. In my gut, though, I was hesitant. Mrs. Axton had suggested going home to Texas and, at least for now, that seemed a safer move. I wasn’t ready to swim with those Nashville sharks.
We headed back to Fort Worth, where my dad and his wife, Lorraine, said we could move in with them. Good thing, since Martha was pregnant with our third child.
Before we arrived, though, we stopped in Springfield, Missouri, for a while and stayed with Billy Walker, a pal from my Waco days who’d gone from being a deejay to a recording artist. Billy was a rising star.
“Stay long as you like, Willie,” he said. “We got lots of room for you, Martha, and the babies.”
As usual, Martha got a job as a waitress. I tried to get on Ozark Jubilee, a country music radio show where Billy was working. I auditioned but didn’t make it. Didn’t take it personally. In my heart, I knew I was better than they thought I was. But better or not, I still needed money. So I got a job washing dishes.
One night Billy and I got to talking. That’s when I played him some new tunes. Billy was a generous listener. He said that he admired my songwriting and encouraged me to pursue the craft. I told him about the encouragement I had gotten from Mae Axton and mentioned the idea of skipping Texas and moving straight to Nashville.
“You could do that,” said Billy, “but I’m sensing that it might be a bit too soon.”
Billy accurately sensed my hesitancy. I challenged us both when I asked, “Why do you say that? Why don’t you think I’m ready for Nashville?”
“I’d turn that around and ask, ‘Is Nashville ready for me?’ Listen to the songs coming outta Nashville, Willie, and you sure don’t hear anything close to what you’re writing. There’s a formula to those tunes. Musically, Nashville is a cookie-cutter town, and you’re not a cookie-cutter writer. Your songs are strong, but they’re strange. They come from the dark corners of your mind. I don’t think Nashville is too interested in those dark corners.”
Fort Worth had its dark corners, but I saw the city in a positive light. Not long ago, I’d been a radio personality there. I had musician friends all over town. And I was always welcome in the home of my father, whose steady job as a Ford mechanic had given him stability. I needed to borrow from his stability. I needed to put my nose to the grindstone.
In terms of steady income, music continued to be an unreliable mistress. I loved her with all my heart, but the sweet thing just couldn’t pay my bills. At the tender age of twenty-five, I was still struggling financially.
Sister Bobbie had remarried. Her husband, Paul Tracy, owned a gas station where I could pick up a little money pumping gas and changing oil. But I needed something better. So I went back to selling encyclopedias, where the potential was greater.
This time I hooked up with Encyclopedia Americana, a high-class brand of books that had a canned sales technique. They called it negative sales because you began with a negative. As a positive thinker, that should have tipped me off as being wrong. But I was hungry and willing to do whatever it took to earn commissions.
I was given a list of customers in Fort Worth who had just gotten their first phone. This meant young couples with children. The plan was to make six appointment
s a day and turn half of those meetings into sales.
The opening negative was, “I’m not a salesman. I’m not trying to sell you anything. I just want to ask a few questions about your future and the future of your family.”
This was a lie. But I was a salesman desperate to close a deal.
I’d drive to the home and park my borrowed pickup truck down the street in order not to make a bad impression.
When the door opened, I offered my best smile. My approach was low-key. I called on my easygoing charm to chat up the woman or the man or the couple. I talked about the beauty of knowledge and education. The more knowledge, the more education, the more prosperity. Self-education was the easiest way to improve our lot. And for merely the daily cost of a pack of Camels, I was offering a whole new world to these newly married couples. I was offering them a gift.
My sincerity came through, and my concern for their well-being and my down-to-earth honesty. First day out I sold three sets at $400 a pop. I felt great, but I also felt like shit.
As I looked around their bare apartments and sparsely furnished little homes, I saw that the last thing these couples needed was a multivolume set of encyclopedias. They needed food and furniture. They needed medical insurance. They didn’t need me selling them a bill of goods.
My conscience got to me, and in short order I quit the job. I couldn’t feel good selling a product that people really didn’t need. That’s when I turned to a more practical product. Vacuum cleaners. No question about it, everyone does need a good machine to tackle dirt.
Kirby vacuum cleaners were the best machines of that era. The problem, though, was that they were costly. To justify that cost I had to demonstrate their power. I did that by talking customers into letting me overturn their mattresses to reveal the accumulation of dirt that the Kirby and Kirby alone could suck up in nothing flat. People were amazed at how much dirt had accumulated under the mattress. They were equally amazed at how quickly the Kirby made that dirt disappear. I sold a boatload of Kirbys. And while I felt less guilty selling vacuum cleaners than encyclopedias, the net effect was the same: I was using the power of my personality to get people to buy an expensive product that, at the end of the day, I’d never buy for myself.
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