“No pressure,” Hank assured me when I met him at the publishing company on Two Mile Pike. “We’ll just hang out in the writers’ room and see what happens.”
The offices were modest. Before we got started, Hank would spend an hour or two calling around town to see who needed material.
At the start of the sixties, the two most powerful men in Nashville music were Owen Bradley, a piano player and head producer at Decca, and Chet Atkins, a world-class guitarist and head producer at RCA. Between the two of them, they had sculpted the Nashville sound. The idea was simple: to sweeten up country music with strings and background singers and make it more palatable to the masses. Atkins and Bradley, both whizzes in the studio, had a mandate from their bosses to make sure their music crossed over from a narrow country market to the broad mainstream. Big productions were in. Songs like Marty Robbins’s “El Paso” and Ferlin Husky’s “Wings of a Dove” were topping the charts—not to mention Elvis’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”
“Don’t worry ’bout what other writers are writing,” said Hank. “We don’t need to copy no one. We got our style. In our own way, we got something to say.”
But what did I have to say?
I’d never asked myself that question before. As a writer, I’d never been self-conscious. Starting out as a kid writing poems, I never worried about when the words would make an appearance. Now, though, as Hank showed me the bare-bones writers’ room—a converted garage with no phone, two desks, two chairs, and an old portable tape recorder—I realized this was creativity on demand. This was something different.
First few days found me a little uneasy. I had my guitar, a pencil, and a blank notebook. Hank might throw out an idea, hoping it would spark something in me. When that didn’t work, he might tell me a joke, or I might tell him one, hoping that joking would lead to some kind of song. It didn’t.
Hank didn’t seem concerned. And one afternoon, after we had just sat around throwing the bull, he said, “I’m going to the office to make a few calls. You work on something by yourself.”
Work on what? My mind was blank. All I could do was look around and say, “Hello, walls.”
That was probably a stupid way to start a song, but what the hell? It was better than nothing.
“Hello, walls,” I kept singing to myself. “How’d things go for you today?”
But where was the story? I needed a story. What was I going to say to the walls?
“Don’t you miss her since she up and walked away?”
That was it. That’s all I needed. I was up and running.
“I’ll bet you dread to spend another lonely night with me. But lonely walls, I’ll keep you company.”
Well, hell: if I could talk to the walls, I could sure as shit talk to the window.
“Hello, window. I see you’re still here. Aren’t you lonely since our darling disappeared? Is that a teardrop in the corner of your pane? Now don’t you try to tell me that it’s rain.”
And if I addressed the walls and the window, what about the ceiling?
“Hello, ceiling. I’m gonna stare at you awhile. You know I can’t sleep so won’t you bear with me awhile?”
Basically, that was it. Sitting in that garage room, all I had to do was deal with what was in front of me—the walls, window, and ceiling. I just had to look around and suddenly the song was there.
By the time Hank came back from his phone call, I’d found a little harmony to carry the lyrics.
“Come up with anything?” he asked.
“Came up with something pretty silly,” I said, “but maybe it’s worth a listen.”
Hank listened to me singing it and said, “It’s worth a fuckin’ fortune. Willie, my friend, you just wrote a hit.”
12
HELLO, HITS
IN 1961, FARON YOUNG’S RECORD of “Hello Walls” went to number one on the country charts and sold two million copies. That’s when my world turned upside down.
Before the record came out, I was still barely getting by. When Faron heard the song, he said, “This thing’s gonna make us both a bunch of money. Lemme loan you five hundred bucks to tide you over.”
Few months later my first royalty check was $3,000. I couldn’t believe it. Like a bat outta hell, I took off for Tootsie’s, where Faron was holding down the fort, doing some heavy drinking with his cronies. I ran up, kissed him on the mouth, and tried to put five crisp hundred-dollar bills in his hand. He wouldn’t take it.
“Hell, Willie,” said Faron. “I don’t need your money. I hear you bought some calves. When one of ’em gets good and fat, I’ll take one.”
Few weeks later we were back at Tootsie’s when Faron saw me and said, “How’s my fat calf coming, Willie? Must be at least four, five hundred pounds by now.” I laughed, offered him the $500 again, but he still refused to take it.
Years passed. I was playing a rodeo in Austin when they auctioned off a bull. My son Billy bought it but didn’t have the cash, so I wound up paying the $15,000. I loaded it in a trailer and sent it to Faron’s office in Nashville. He went out to the driveway and found a registered two-thousand-pound prize Seminole bull with a note that said, “Here’s that calf I owe you.” Faron took the bull out to pasture, where he and his partner Jimmy C. Newman, a star of the Grand Ole Opry, used it for breeding for years.
Tootsie’s was the launching pad for all kinds of grand connections. One night I spotted Charlie Dick. He was Patsy Cline’s husband and manager. I had with me a copy of “Night Life” that I’d cut with Paul Buskirk in Houston. I put it on the jukebox, cranked up the volume, and asked Charlie if he wouldn’t mind listening.
“I like it,” said Charlie. “It’s not right for Patsy. But what else you got?”
I had a rough demo of “Crazy.”
“Would you consider a song called ‘Crazy’?”
“Hell, I’d consider anything. Long as it’s a hit.”
I put on “Crazy.”
Charlie listened carefully. Couldn’t tell by the serious expression on his face whether he loved it or hated it.
“I love it,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Where we going?”
“To the house. Gonna play it for Patsy. Come on.”
“It’s one a.m., Charlie. Patsy’s probably asleep.”
“Well, we’ll wake her up. She has to hear this song.”
When we got to the house, I didn’t want to go in. I’d never met Patsy Cline and didn’t want to disturb her. I waited out in the car.
But Patsy, who was a sweetheart, wouldn’t have it. After Charlie woke her up and said he had a hit song she had to hear—and that the songwriter was waiting in the car—she came out to get me.
The three of us—me, Charlie, and Patsy—listened to it on the phonograph in their den.
“Glad you woke me up,” Patsy told Charlie. “Glad you wrote this song,” Patsy told me. “I’m recording it.”
I wasn’t at the session, but from what I heard, it almost didn’t happen. Patsy was so taken with the way I’d sung the song that she tried to follow my phrasing. No one should try to follow my phrasing. My phrasing is peculiar to me. I’ll lay back on the beat or jump ahead. I’m always doing something funny with time because, to me, time is a flexible thing. I believe in taking my time. When it comes to singing a song, I’ve got all the time in the world.
Patsy’s producer, the great Owen Bradley at Decca, was losing patience with her.
“Screw Willie Nelson and his screwy sense of meter,” Owen was said to say. “Forget how Willie sings it. You sing it your way.”
“But it’s his song,” Patsy protested.
“Okay, but now it’s time to make it your song.”
Patsy did just that. Her version of “Crazy” became one of the best-selling country songs of all time. Of all the versions of my songs covered by other artists, it’s my favorite. She understood the lyrics on the deepest possible level. She sang it with delicacy, soul, and perfect diction. She didn’t overdo i
t or underdo it. Patsy did the song proud. She did me proud. I’m forever grateful for what I consider a perfect rendition.
I kept hearing about the originality of “Crazy.” Industry people were saying that they’d never heard a song like it. The truth is that, while the lyrics are highly unusual, I actually borrowed the first few notes of the song from Floyd Tillman’s “I Gotta Have My Baby Back.” It wasn’t intentional. Must have been unconscious. When I compared the two tunes, though, it was obvious. I didn’t worry about it, though, ’cause I knew Floyd didn’t care. Good songwriters realize that a little borrowing now and then is part of the process. As time went on, I was flattered when other writers borrowed from me. Far as I’m concerned, all the notes are free.
After “Crazy” hit, so did Billy Walker’s version of “Funny How Time Slips Away.” I was also thrilled when Ray Price—co-owner of Pamper Music and my publishing boss—thought so highly of “Night Life” that he recorded it himself. To my ears, Ray Price has the most comforting voice in country music. Like Patsy, he has unerring taste. There’s never too much emotion or too little. Ray Price gets it right every time.
So just like that, in the course of a year, I had four songs on the top-twenty country chart. To make matters sweeter, two of those songs—“Hello Walls” and “Crazy”—also crossed over to the pop charts.
In short, I was in the money. It felt great to be able to move the family into a nicer house and not worry about putting food on the table. Felt even greater to have the certain knowledge that my songs were selling like hotcakes.
If I were a normal person, I’d have settled down and simply written more songs, since all the producers were knocking at my door. A normal person would start saving his money. A normal person would realize that, given the fickle nature of the music business, his hot streak could turn cold any second.
But being far from normal, I did something that took everyone by surprise. I went to work in Ray Price’s band, the same Ray Price who co-owned Pamper Music and had sung the hell outta “Night Life.”
Ray called me and said, “My bass player, Donny Young, up and quit on me. Can you play bass, Willie?”
Donny Young—who’d later rename himself Johnny Paycheck—had been one of the anchors of Ray’s band.
I laughed and said, “Can’t everyone play bass, Ray?”
I got the job, but the truth was that I’d never played bass before in my life.
Because Ray had been in Hank Williams’s band—and took over the band when Hank died in 1953—I felt like part of history. Hank Williams’s Drifting Cowboys had become Ray’s Cherokee Cowboys. It was the same band that, at one time or another, featured Buddy Emmons, Darrell McCall, Jimmy Day, and Roger Miller. So when Ray hired me at twenty-five dollars a day, I was thrilled.
I took my royalty money, bought Ray’s 1959 midnight-black Caddie, and gave it to Martha, hoping that’d make her happy. I was happy to inherit Donny Young’s bass and his pink jacket covered with rhinestones.
On the way from Nashville to our first gig in Winchester, Virginia—Patsy Cline’s hometown—Jimmy Day taught me to play the instrument. He showed me that the top four strings on a bass are the same as on a guitar. He also went over Ray’s songs, which were mostly simple three-chord structures. Jimmy got me through. Years later, when I asked Ray if he had known I couldn’t play bass when he hired me, all he said was, “Yup.”
I loved being a Cherokee Cowboy onstage, backing up Ray, who, like Bob Wills, was the ultimate pro, playing one crowd-pleaser after another.
For my part, I pleased my fellow Cherokee Cowboys by going hog wild with my songwriting money. Heavy drinking had a lot to do with it. So did my I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude. When we checked into a hotel, I’d get the penthouse or presidential suite and have the boys up for an all-night party. I did that for weeks on end until my royalty money ran out.
“I think you might want to be a little more prudent with your earnings,” Ray said to me.
“I’m not sure what that word means.”
“Well, son,” he said, “you better find out.”
I’ll tell you just what a great friend Ray turned out to be. When it was time to record in the studio, he didn’t need me. He hired the best bass players in Nashville. But he had me come along anyway so I could get some union pay. He gave me a guitar with no amp, which meant no one heard me. I’d play into an ashtray and pretend it was a mic.
Good as everything was going with Ray, that’s how bad things were going with Martha. She and I had been washed up for longer than I’d been ready to admit. One of the worst moments happened at Tootsie’s. We’d both been doing some heavy drinking that led to heavy accusations about our past behaviors. Can’t remember the exact details, but it wouldn’t be far off to say that Martha had found out about some two-timing on my part and wanted the world to know about it. She was screaming, I was screaming for her to stop screaming, and when she finally did stop screaming, she started into throwing whiskey glasses at me. I ducked, but my pal Hank Cochran didn’t. Shattered glass cut his face. I took him to the hospital, where, still plastered, I wouldn’t let the doctor on duty treat him. I insisted that no respectable doctor would be working the graveyard shift at the county hospital.
“Shut the fuck up, Willie,” said Hank, “and let this man sew me up before I bleed to death.”
The death of my marriage to Martha finally came in 1962. We’d been together ten turbulent years. Even when I knew we couldn’t make it any longer, I gave the woman all the credit in the world for putting up with my sorry ass. Martha was a firebrand, an indomitable spirit, a beautiful woman who, in spite of my shenanigans, stood tall and proud. But all her good qualities didn’t keep me from falling for another beautiful woman. This lady had the further advantage of being a singer. She heard me so deeply and harmonized with me so closely that I just knew we were meant to be together. First we made music together and then we made love. The only complication, of course, was that we were still married to other people.
Shirley Collie, wife to my deejay friend Bif Collie, was well-known in the country field as a fine lead and harmony singer. She was also a great yodeler. She’d played on The Philip Morris Country Music Show with Red Foley and had performed with Grady Martin, the great guitarist.
I had run into Shirley and Bif on the road. That was in the late fifties. Then our relationship was renewed in 1961, when Hank Cochran tried to get her to sing a few of my songs. That happened at a session at Radio Recorders, a studio in L.A. where I was cutting my first sides as an artist for Liberty Records.
Hank had convinced Liberty’s A&R man for country music, Joe Allison, that I was the next big thing. Liberty was a strong label with an interest in a wide variety of styles. Everyone from Jan and Dean to Julie London to Vikki Carr to the Chipmunks was on Liberty. And Bob Wills was on Liberty. That’s all I really needed to know. When they offered me a contract as a country artist, I jumped at the chance.
Allison knew that there wasn’t any way I was gonna change my singing style—and that was fine by him. He understood me. He just wanted me to sing my own songs in my own way.
It was while I was cutting “Mr. Record Man,” the song I had written during my dark days in Houston, that Hank Cochran brought over Shirley and Bif. “Mr. Record Man” was my first single for Liberty. It didn’t set any sales records, but it got me decent airplay.
Meanwhile, I was still on the road with Ray Price and the Cherokee Cowboys, and from time to time, Shirley and Bif would come to the gigs. No doubt Shirley and I were impressed with each other. She was a pretty-as-a-picture redhead who could not only sing like an angel but wrote beautifully and even played a mean bass.
We got involved both romantically and musically at about the same time. Joe Allison thought it would be a good idea for us to record some duets. They gave us an excuse—and an occasion—to spend lots of time in each other’s company. Our voices fit together perfectly. So did our bodies.
Hank Cochran wrote a song, the f
irst we cut, called “Willingly.” It told our story. The song said that we both knew it was wrong—“to someone else we both belonged.” Yet willingly we fell in love. Shirley sang, “Willingly, I fell, although I knew.” And I sang, “Sweetheart, I knew the same as you.” But that “knew” made no difference. We were willing to take the risk.
The B side was a song of mine, another duet with Shirley: “Chain of Love,” a pretty good description of what was going on in our messed-up marriages.
“When the chain of love is broken,” we sang in close harmony, “its pieces scattered all around, in the hasty search for reason, sometimes a link cannot be found.”
As if I were speaking to Martha, and Shirley were addressing Bif, we sang, “I say you’re wrong to say it’s my fault, you saw it coming all along. We’ve lost a link of understanding. Our chain of love cannot last long.”
It didn’t last long.
Martha did what any self-respecting woman would do. She headed out to Vegas in Ray Price’s big black Cadillac and got a divorce.
“This chain of love we’ve pieced together,” Shirley and I kept singing, “with the links of understanding gone. The link of patience must work overtime—our chain of love cannot last long.”
I wanted to be understanding. I wanted to be patient.
But more than anything, I wanted to be with Shirley. I wanted to move in a different direction.
I had never met another singer who could follow my strange phrasing so closely. If it worked in music, I was also sure it would work in life.
“I believe we’re meant to be together,” I told Shirley.
“I believe it, too,” she said.
“You gotta understand that I’m a country boy from Abbott, Texas.”
“And I’m a country girl from Chillicothe, Missouri.”
“I like this singing and picking just fine,” I said, “but one day soon I might retire to a farm and leave it all behind. What do you say about that?”
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