It's a Long Story

by Willie Nelson

  I was more inclined to believe Paul Buskirk, my old pal who had also relocated to Houston. Paul was a first-rate musician. His opinion mattered. Hearing the same songs I’d played for Pappy, Paul didn’t hesitate to say, “Pappy’s got his head up his ass. These songs need to be recorded.”

  “By who?”

  “Let me worry about that, Willie.”

  Paul put his money where his mouth was. Right then and there, he bought two of my tunes—“Family Bible” for fifty dollars and “Night Life” for a hundred and fifty dollars. Before I knew it, he took singer Claude Gray into the studio to cut “Family Bible” with “The Party’s Over” on the flip side and convinced Pappy to release it on D Records. It took a while but the single started climbing to the top of the country charts. My name wasn’t anywhere on the record, but I was still thrilled. I’d proven I could write a hit record.

  Paul had great faith in me. He’d begun a thriving side business—Paul Buskirk School of Guitar—and wanted me to teach there.

  “Teach?” I said. “Hell, I need to be taught. I need to go there and take lessons.”

  “You’re better than you think you are, Willie,” Paul assured me. “It’s a beginner’s course. Just stay a chapter ahead of the students and you’ll be all right.”

  “As long as you walk me through that chapter.”

  Paul did just that. He took the weekend to teach me what had to be taught. Because he was such a fluent musician himself, able to play beautifully in any style, he was a fluent teacher. He gave his lessons a flow that I, in turn, was able to impart to my students. It was another one of those unexpected blessings. And, like at my Sunday school lessons back at the Metropolitan Baptist Church in Fort Worth, I found myself learning far more than I taught.

  In Houston, I also learned that my days as an early morning deejay were numbered. I’d found a job at a little station that gave me the 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. shift. But my late nights at the Esquire Ballroom took their toll, and after showing up late more than once, I was unceremoniously canned.

  But thank God for Paul Buskirk. Paul always had a plan.

  “I’m taking you to Gold Star Studios,” he said, “and we’re cutting ‘Night Life.’ ”

  “With Claude Gray singing?” I asked.

  “Hell, no. With you singing, Willie. That song came out of your heart. No one can sing it like you.”

  That was music to my ears.

  Gold Star was the best studio in Houston. George Jones had recorded there. It was also where the Big Bopper had cut his big hit “Chantilly Lace.” Gold Star was home to the great bluesman Lightnin’ Hopkins.

  The session was relaxed, mainly because Paul was in charge. He wrote the arrangement, picked the musicians, and, along with me, played lead guitar. As far as producing my vocals, he had little to say beyond, “It’s your story, Willie. Sing it the way you feel it.”

  At the end of the day, we were sure we had a hit.

  “When Pappy Daily hears it, he’ll love it,” said Paul.

  “I hate it,” said Pappy Daily when we played it for him the next day. “That ain’t no country song. It’s a blues song, something for Lightnin’ Hopkins. No country station is ever gonna play it.”

  “You’re wrong,” said Paul.

  “Wrong or right,” said Pappy, “I got Willie under contract—and I sure as hell ain’t releasing this.”

  Not to be discouraged, Paul put the song out on another label, Rx, using the name “Paul Buskirk and the Little Men featuring Hugh Nelson.”

  Don’t think we pressed up more than a few hundred copies. Didn’t get the distribution we had hoped for. A few deejays, like Uncle Hank at XEG in Mexico, gave it a spin, but it soon disappeared.

  “It’s a goddamn good song,” Paul kept insisting. “One day it’ll find an audience. One day it’ll become a standard.”

  In 1960, I had no way of knowing that Paul was prophetic. All I knew was that even after having fucked around Houston—playing the Esquire and deejaying and working with D Records—I was still broke as the Ten Commandments.

  I loved my wife, Martha. I loved my beautiful babies, Lana, Susie, and Willie Jr. I wanted to do right by them. I wanted to do right by myself. I wanted to get out of the financial doldrums. I wanted to make a living singing and picking and writing. And I didn’t want to bullshit myself. I wanted to accept the cold reality of who I was and what I could do.

  What was that reality?

  As a singer, I had a style, but not everyone liked that style. I liked my style, but I knew my style was quirky. Besides, I didn’t have a big booming voice like Johnny Bush. In traditional terms, I couldn’t consider myself a great singer.

  Nor was I a great guitarist like Paul Buskirk. I could make my way around the guitar. I could accompany myself and sculpt solos that made sense. My playing had feeling and expressed my soul. But my playing was limited.

  When I looked at my writing, though, I saw something I genuinely liked and admired. These recent songs I had written compared favorably with anything I heard on the radio. The fact that one—“Family Bible”—had sold nationwide confirmed my confidence.

  I was a good writer, and there was no reason I couldn’t compete in the arena where the best writers worked.

  That was Nashville, Tennessee.

  Ever since I’d met Mae Axton, Nashville had been on my mind. I’d postponed going there because… well, I was scared. Scared of not making it there, of not measuring up.

  The fear wasn’t entirely gone, but in 1960, at about the time I turned twenty-seven, in the battle between fear and faith, faith finally took the lead.

  11

  THE STORE

  NASHVILLE LIKED TO BILL ITSELF as Music City. I just saw it as the Store. The Store is where you shop. If you’re a music producer, you shop for songs at the Store. I needed to get the Store to stock my merchandise. I thought my merchandise was good, so that should have been a simple task.

  It wasn’t.

  Nashville was a struggle. There were good moments, but it was an uphill battle. I did get my merchandise in the Store, but that wasn’t enough to get me over. With all the music coming out of Nashville—all the great musicians and legendary producers—you’d think I’d be a natural fit. I never was. For that I don’t blame Nashville. I blame my own peculiar nature.

  Knowing it might take a while to get going, I took Martha and the kids to Waco to stay with her folks before heading out to Tennessee in my broken-down 1950 Buick.

  Soon as I hit Nashville and turned the corner on Music Row, where the big record companies had their offices and studios, the Buick laid down and died. That should have told me something.

  I didn’t know what to do or where to go, and I only had enough money for one night at a fleabag hotel. So you can guess where I stayed. Next morning I was sitting in a coffee shop when who should walk in but Billy Walker, my pal from Texas.

  “Willie! Good to see you, buddy. What are you doing in town?”

  “Same as everyone else. Selling songs.”

  “Sold any yet?”

  I laughed. “Just got here.”

  “Well, lemme see if I can help you.”

  Billy’s words nearly brought tears to my eyes. Like Paul Buskirk, Billy turned out to be one of those guardian angels disguised as a musician.

  He had gone from Ozark Jubilee to Nashville, where he’d been hired by The Grand Ole Opry.

  “They don’t pay shit,” he said. “But the Opry connects you with everyone in town. Through the Opry I got me a deejay job at WSM doing a noontime show. There’s work here, and with your talent you’ll find something soon.”

  What I did find was a loyal and loving friend in Billy Walker. He and his wife let me stay in their home for three months. Billy personally took me to all the studios and introduced me to all the producers. Some took the time to listen to my songs; others didn’t. I couldn’t thank Billy enough. Either way, though, no one bought a goddamn thing.

  “I can see by how you present your
self that you can sell,” said Billy. “If the songs aren’t selling, maybe there’s other stuff you can sell.”

  “I’ve sold vacuum cleaners, I’ve sold sewing machines, I’ve sold encyclopedias,” I said.

  “If you sold that stuff in Texas, no reason why you can’t sell ’em in Nashville. I know some people.”

  Those people were looking for encyclopedia salesmen.

  So there I was again, out on the streets, going house to house, sticking my foot in doors before they closed on me, barely avoiding physical attacks by angry dogs and verbal attacks by angry housewives who didn’t want to hear my pitch. My pitch wasn’t all that great because my heart wasn’t into selling encyclopedias. My heart was into selling these songs that were still pouring outta me.

  My heart was warmed by the arrival of Martha and the kids. But the warmth didn’t last for long. All we could afford was a nasty little trailer at Dunn’s Trailer Court that sat between a used car lot and a cemetery. Rent was twenty-five dollars a week. My salesman’s commissions weren’t nearly that much. It was Martha who saved the day, Martha who got a waitress job at the Hitching Post. The owner was so impressed that he soon made her manager. That gave her the flexibility to find a second job, waiting tables at the Wagon Wheel. Without a doubt it was Martha who kept us afloat.

  I was grateful for this hardworking woman, but I was also humiliated. My family’s living conditions had never been worse. I was unemployed and, for all the ambition and courage it had taken to move to Nashville, I still had nothing to show for it. It was small comfort that other Nashville writers had started out in this same trailer park. Hank Cochran had lived there, and so had Roger Miller, who would later immortalize the dump in his song “King of the Road.”

  Hank and Roger were two of the tunesmiths I met hanging out at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge. Tootsie’s was across the alley from the Ryman Auditorium, home of the Grand Ole Opry, the high church of country music. Tootsie knew everyone, including all the stars from the Opry. But Tootsie had a heart for the everyday folks like me who had come to Nashville with a pocketful of dreams. She was our mother hen—patient, kind, and always encouraging. Wasn’t easy mothering a herd of pickers and writers who were inclined to drown their sorrows in booze.

  The more I drank, the further I fell into the depths of despair and jealousy. Even though I might go off with a willing woman, I couldn’t stand the idea of Martha being with another man. I lived with a double standard: it was okay for me to cheat, but not Martha, who was hauling in good tips at the Hitching Post, right across the street from the Orchid Lounge. To her credit, Martha didn’t put up with my hypocrisy. If she wanted to drink, she drank. If she fancied another man, that was her business. Our fights were brutal. One time she bit my index finger to the bone. I worried about what that would do to my picking. Took weeks for me to regain my guitar chops. Martha knew how to hurt me, and vice versa. After a knock-down, drag-out battle, she’d run out and leave me with the kids for a couple of days, or I’d do the same to her. This went on for years.

  I tried to hold on to those good affirmations of positive thinking. But given enough hard drinking, even the most faithful can fall. And when a cold front hit Nashville that winter, I sat at the bar at Tootsie’s and gazed out the window, watching the drifting snow, feeling as low as low can be. My soul was frozen over. The warm sunshine of hope was a million miles away.

  I didn’t know how long I could go on in Nashville. I still hadn’t found a way to get my songs in the Store. And even though I had found good pals like Roger and Hank and deejays Grant Turner and Ralph Emery, I felt like I was sliding down a slippery slope.

  You can bet I’d been downing big quantities of whiskey and wine and beer. I was no longer in my right mind. I was in my who-gives-a-fuck mind. I was out of my mind. I got up from the barstool and walked out into the cold. I didn’t have a heavy coat, just a denim jacket, but the freezing temperature didn’t bother me. The chilling wind didn’t bother me. The snowfall didn’t bother me. Nothing fuckin’ bothered me.

  The city was still. Hardly any traffic. No one on the street except me. A weird peace came over me as I walked off the sidewalk into the middle of the street, where—don’t ask me why—I decided to lie down and rest.

  Right then and there, I lay on my back, eyes wide open, watching the snowflakes fall on my head.

  I considered the possibility that a car might well roll over me. I guess I must have been okay with that possibility because, for at least ten minutes, I didn’t move.

  Maybe I knew that, given the stormy conditions, traffic was so light that I would survive.

  Or maybe I didn’t know that.

  Maybe I was looking for an out.

  Or maybe I was just taking a break. Or a chance.

  It’s tough to know exactly what I was up to. I was drunk, and, as a rule, drunks do crazy shit.

  Under the craziness, though, there had to be a design. Or a dare.

  I can’t tell you that I was trying to commit suicide, because I wasn’t. In those days, I usually packed a pistol. In my young and stupid macho mind, I thought that’s what real men did. If I were really interested in ending it all, I could have shot myself in the head. But that thought did not cross my mind.

  Instead, it was just a matter of reclining in the middle of the street on a snowy night in Nashville.

  I might have written a song about it, but I didn’t. After I lay there awhile, I simply got up, shook off the snow, and strolled back into Tootsie’s.

  No one had seen what I had done.

  “Hey, Willie,” said one of the regulars. “What the hell were you doing out there in the cold?”

  “Just needed a bit of fresh air,” I said.

  “Looks like you can use a drink. Can I buy you one?”

  “Sure thing,” I said. “Much obliged.”

  The world took a turn, as it always will, and a week later I was back at Tootsie’s. In the wake of the storm that I’d weathered, I’d found a certain calm. I brought along my guitar and welcomed what songwriters called a pulling. That’s when we trot out our songs and play ’em for each other. The mood was a mix of friendly competition and brotherly support. You might have to endure a few cutting remarks, but if your song was good, you’d be encouraged. It was hard for your song not to sound good when you were jamming with Jimmy Day and Buddy Emmons, the great steel guitarists who were regulars at Tootsie’s.

  The songwriters included gifted guys like Hank Cochran, Harlan Howard, Mel Tillis, and Roger Miller. I felt lucky to be in their company.

  Hank Cochran, who was actually selling songs when I wasn’t, treated me like I was already a winner.

  “You’ll make money at this, Willie,” he told me at one of the pullings. “You’re too good not to.”

  “Appreciate the kind words, Hank,” I said, “but I’m feeling like I’m going nowhere fast.”

  “That’s ’cause you’re going to the wrong places. You need to come with me.”

  “And where might you be going?” I asked.

  “Goodlettsville.”

  “What’s there?”

  “Pamper Music.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Music publishing firm where I’m the top writer and top song plugger. The head honcho, Hal Smith, has an ear. His business partner is Ray Price. Hal’s gonna like your stuff. I guaran-goddamn-tee it.”

  Few days later Hank drove me out to Goodlettsville, twenty miles outside Nashville, to play my songs for Smith. I trotted out my best stuff—“Night Life,” “Crazy,” “Funny How Time Slips Away.”

  “Sounds good,” was all Smith said. “Let me get back to you.”

  Hank drove us back to the trailer park.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “I’m thinking only positive thoughts, Willie. I’m thinking that Hal’s too smart not to offer you a writer’s deal.”

  Wasn’t twenty-four hours later that Hank came back to the trailer park to tell me the news himself.
/>   “You’re hired,” he said. “How does fifty bucks a week sound?”

  Sounded great. My first job as a professional songwriter. It would take me years to learn that it was Hank Cochran, not Hal Smith, who really gave me the break. When Hal had told Hank that he couldn’t afford another staff writer, Hank had said, “Instead of giving me that fifty dollar a week raise you offered last week, apply it to Willie’s salary.”

  Hank turned out to be another guardian angel. This was especially beautiful because it was unexpected. I didn’t expect generosity like that from a killer competitor like Hank. His song-plugging exploits were legendary.

  For example, if Burl Ives was coming to Nashville to listen to the latest compositions by the city’s leading tunesmiths, Hank would position himself to be last in line. After six or seven writers would display their wares, Hank would barrage Burl with his full catalog.

  “If you don’t like this one,” he’d say, “I got another one even better.”

  Hank would keep going until Burl agreed to cut at least one of his songs. Getting last licks usually assured him of a sale. Or if Burl was reluctant to commit that evening, he’d find Hank waiting for him in the hotel coffee shop the next morning with a new set of songs.

  Hank was always selling—cornering artists backstage at concerts, showing up at their homes uninvited, popping up at radio stations where the artists were promoting their concerts. The man was unrelenting.

  Yet the man could not have been kinder and more helpful in pushing me into the position of full-time songwriter. Part of his motive was pure generosity, but another was that he saw in me a worthy songwriting partner.

  “Together,” he said, “we can make ourselves some real money.”

  The fifty bucks a week salary meant I could move the family out to a decent place in Goodlettsville, close to the Pamper Music offices. This was a whole new world for me—actually going to a nine-to-five where my only job was to write songs.

  It felt strange. That’s ’cause I’d always written on the fly, while driving the car in the middle of the night, while walking the dog in the middle of the morning, while sitting by the side of a creek and daydreaming about nothing in particular. These songs came when they came.