What I did know was that it was time to take a break from Colorado. Thought it would be fun to live on the Southern California coastline. So in the summer of 1977, Connie, the girls, and I moved into a nice condo in Malibu.
I fell into an easygoing routine. Get up, have my coffee, and head to the beach for a brisk jog. Then it was back to the condo for lunch, a little nap before an hour or two of business calls.
An alarming call came in early June. I learned that the Drug Enforcement Administration had raided Waylon’s office in Nashville and found a packet of cocaine that had been shipped to him from Neil Reshen’s office in Nashville. Waylon was arrested.
This was distressing news, not only because Waylon and Neil were friends, but because I’d recently helped Waylon get into rehab. Mark Rothbaum, Neil’s loyal assistant, had done the same for Neil. Apparently, though, the rehab didn’t take. The boys were back snorting more blow than ever.
I wondered how in hell they could get out of this mess.
The answer was Mark. A sharp young man with a brilliant future before him, Mark nonetheless took the rap for Waylon and Neil. As the sender of the coke, he claimed the drug was his. The irony was thick: Mark, who eventually became a world-class Ironman triathlon athlete, didn’t even do drugs. But he wanted to protect his boss and Waylon, an artist he loved. And he did. The law didn’t touch Neil or Waylon. Mark wound up in a Connecticut prison.
Acts of valor are rare. Mark’s unselfish behavior impressed me deeply. It came at a critical time in my career. The very week Mark was being incarcerated, I learned that I was being liened up by the IRS. For the past four years, Neil had asked for tax extensions. Although he told me otherwise, he had never paid a single cent of the taxes. It was time to let Neil go.
By now Mark knew my operation as well as anyone. I trusted him implicitly and decided to let him take over for Neil. Did it bother me that my new manager was in jail? Not in the fuckin’ least. Hell, I was proud of him for being in jail.
In fact, I went to his Connecticut prison to play a benefit. By then Mark was editing the prison newspaper and doing all sorts of good work. The warden was so impressed that he let Mark use his office—and his phone—to book gigs for me. Miles Davis had also fired Neil and, like me, turned his career over to Mark.
Imagine: a thirty-year-old managing Willie Nelson and Miles Davis from jail, and doing a kick-ass job.
Mark also turned into a legal beagle, studying up on his case and finding a precedent that convinced a federal court judge to reduce his sentence from a year to two months. During his eight weeks in prison we spoke every day.
Just as I had gone from prison in the Bahamas to the White House, Mark did the same. Turned out that the day of his release I was putting on another concert at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Mark had made the concert arrangements with the Carter administration and was sprung just in time to attend.
From that day forward, Mark has been by my side. On more occasions than I care to count, his keen intelligence has saved my sorry ass.
Back in the summer of 1977, I faced another decision: how to follow up my Lefty Frizzell album. Waylon and I had recorded “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,” which proved to be a huge crossover hit. Naturally the Columbia execs were looking for more of the same. But I wasn’t thinking that way. All during that Malibu summer, I was thinking back to songs that had inspired me coming up—not country songs, but Tin Pan Alley standards sung by singers like Frank Sinatra.
Jogging on the beach, watching the sunsets, toking, and dreaming of days gone by.
Coming back from a morning run, I happened to run into Booker T. Jones. He and his wife had a condo in the same building where I was staying with Connie and the girls.
We got to talking. I knew his work from Booker T. and the MG’s, the great rhythm section that not only had huge hits like “Green Onions” but was the main support system of the Stax/Volt soul music labels and the backing band for Otis Redding and Sam and Dave.
When he mentioned that he had a few keyboards at his place, I went over to try out some material. Booker is a schooled musician, well versed in all the genres, so he knew every song I wanted to sing—“Stardust,” “Blue Skies,” “All of Me,” “Unchained Melody.”
For all our differences, Booker and I were linked by our love of the blues in general and our love of Ray Charles in particular. When I had just the slightest hesitation about singing “Georgia on My Mind,” a song so closely associated with Ray, Booker encouraged me.
“Ray did it his way,” he said, “and you’ll do it yours. None of these songs belong to any particular singer. They belong to the world.”
Booker was right. Much as I loved Sinatra singing “Blue Skies,” Roy Hamilton doing “Unchained Melody,” and Margaret Whiting interpreting “Moonlight in Vermont,” I was set on creating my own interpretations.
When we had mapped out ten songs, I decided to use a home studio in the Hollywood Hills set up by Brian Ahern, then married to Emmylou Harris. In addition to Booker serving as supervisor and playing keyboards, I brought along the usual crew: Jody Payne on guitar, sister Bobbie on piano, Bee on bass, Paul and Rex Ludwig on drums. Mickey recorded his bluesy harmonica solos in the tiled bathroom, taking advantage of what he called “the great natural reverb.”
Booker kept it basic. No soaring string sections, not a single backup singer. We did the whole thing in little more than a week. Yet I never felt rushed. I had lots of space to maneuver and calmly meditate on the meaning of these timeless songs. I had lots of time to caress the melodies in my own way. I had the freedom to let my guitar say what needed to be said.
In singing “Moonlight in Vermont,” for example, I discovered something that, for all the times I had heard the song, I had never noticed: none of the words rhyme. Doesn’t that go against one of the basic rules of songwriting? Isn’t some rhyme always necessary? The answer is no. “Moonlight” ’s storytelling is so enchanting, its lyrics so poetic and its melody so lush, that I can’t imagine anyone complaining about—or even noticing—the lack of rhyme. It’s a masterpiece, and masterpieces are defined by results, not rules.
The boys at Columbia? You guessed it: they did not think this new album that I was calling Stardust was anything close to a masterpiece.
“They’re songs from a forgotten era,” said the top man. “What’s the point of digging up these old chestnuts?”
“The point is simple,” I explained. “When they came out, they were hits. People loved these songs. They were so good they lasted. And now there’s three or four new generations of fans who haven’t heard them. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that those fans are bound to love this music. Fact of the matter is, I think it’s goddamn obvious.”
“Listen to reason, Willie. These new generations you’re talking about look at you like an outlaw guru. They want you to sing edgy cowboy songs. Or Grateful Dead or Bob Dylan songs. They relate to you because you’re a nonconformist. Believe me, they don’t want to hear you doing songs they associate with their fathers or grandfathers. Don’t indulge yourself. Listen to reason.”
“I’m listening to my heart,” was all I said.
“Then at least take these basic tracks and let a producer work them up so they’ll get airplay. Right now they sound like demos.”
I didn’t bother to say that I’d heard that same criticism about Red Headed Stranger. What was the point? Knowing that my contract guaranteed me creative freedom, the executive realized his argument could go only so far. I didn’t want to be disrespectful, but I also didn’t want to hear any more bull.
“I like this record,” I said before leaving. “I like the way we framed these songs. If you’re right and people think they’re old-fashioned, that still won’t change my opinion.”
When I didn’t put my likeness on the cover of the album and instead used a painting of a starry constellation, the powers that be grew even more incensed. I didn’t care. I thought the picture reflected the mood of
Stardust.
Before the album was released, I played it for an audience of one: Waylon Jennings. He and I were in Austin, shooting the shit in the suite I kept as a hideaway at the old Hotel Gondolier on the banks of Town Lake. Waylon listened to the whole thing without saying a word. When the last song, “Someone to Watch Over Me,” was over, his eyes were filled with tears.
“Goddamn, hoss,” he said. “I never knew these tunes were so fuckin’ beautiful. Where’d you find them?”
“There’s a big book full of them, Waylon. If the album sells, I can make my living singing in cocktail lounges for the rest of my natural life.”
The album came out in the spring of 1978. Even though I was confident that the project would find success, I had no idea of the level of that success. The singles “Blue Skies,” “All of Me,” and “Georgia on My Mind,” hardly country songs, became top-five country hits. Stardust, hardly a country album, rose to number one on the country charts. And then it crossed over into pop territory. The big surprise was how long Stardust stayed on the charts: over ten years. More people heard it, more they liked it. Last time I looked, the damn thing had sold over five million copies.
I appreciated the kind words from the critics. But what pleased me most was the damage done to narrow-minded thinking. Conventional wisdom said that country music fans wouldn’t go for pop standards, and it insisted that my new young audience wouldn’t go for old songs. Wrong on both counts.
Stardust broke down barriers and busted up categories. Its blockbuster sales success put me in a position where I never had to argue with record execs again. From then on, without discussion, I just kept recording what came to me naturally, without forethought or analysis.
After Stardust, my mood sure was up. I didn’t wait long to release another record, a live one called Willie and Family Live, a two-LP package of a show at Lake Tahoe. By the time that one hit the stores, I was back in the studio doing an album of all Kris Kristofferson songs. And because we had enjoyed such smooth sailing with Stardust, I brought back Booker to produce a Christmas album. I named it after my holiday song that Roy Orbison had sung back in 1963: Pretty Paper.
If everything was working, why not try a little bit of everything? Before the seventies came to an end, I initiated a project I’d been wanting to do for years: a collaboration with Leon Russell. While we were in the studio, there was a lot of press speculation. The assumption was that we’d aim our music at the “youth market,” the audience that Leon had reached long before I had left Nashville for Austin.
That assumption could not have been more misguided. The truth was that in picking songs, Leon and I shared the same attitude. He was as steeped in nostalgia as me.
The result, One for the Road, was a double album of everything from Gene Autry’s “Ridin’ down the Canyon” to Cole Porter’s “Don’t Fence Me In” to George Gershwin’s “Summertime,” with an old blues tune like “Trouble in Mind,” a pop ballad like “Tenderly,” and a honky-tonk favorite like “The Wild Side of Life” thrown in for good measure. The first single turned into a number one hit on the country charts: our version of “Heartbreak Hotel,” the song my mentor Mae Axton had written for Elvis Presley.
Leon and I took One for the Road on the road, playing dates to multigenerational audiences all too happy to hear us slip and slide over the overlapping genres of country, soul, pop, and sloppy rock and roll.
Musically, I couldn’t have been happier. As I moved into middle age—I turned forty-five in 1978—I looked back with wonder and gratitude.
What to make of my trip from Abbott to Waco to San Antonio to Fort Worth to San Diego to Portland back to Fort Worth to Houston to Nashville to Bandera to Austin to the snowy heights of Colorado?
Surely I was blessed. Surely some benevolent force was protecting me. Given all my stupid mistakes, it was amazing that I hadn’t gone under, in more ways than one.
Lots of people who love the Lord die young for no fault of their own. I don’t think it was the Lord who kept me from falling off the cliff or down the well. In my own weird way, I knew to avoid certain pitfalls. I knew how to survive.
More than mere survival, I was looking at new horizons. Beyond music, I had my eye on something else.
That something else went back to my childhood, when I’d take my bike from Abbott to the Best Movie Theater in West to watch Roy Rogers ride the range.
I thought about movies and how the singers that I admired—Bing Crosby, Gene Autry, Frank Sinatra, and Elvis—had made the move to the silver screen.
If I fell on my ass, so what? At least I’d have fun trying. It was a temptation I couldn’t resist.
PART FOUR
OVER THE RAINBOW
Back to the Future
“WILLIE NELSON HOMELESS AND BROKE
He’s lost his cars, his band, his houses, his money, and his clothes.”
I’ve never given a flying fuck what the scandal sheets say about me—especially The National Enquirer. So when that low-rent rag put me on the cover and blew up my misfortune—along with headlines about Cher’s plastic surgeries and psychic predictions for 1991—I didn’t even know about it until my phone started ringing. Friends and neighbors were worried, thinking that I was standing on the corner hawking pencils or, like the man in my Christmas song, on the street selling pretty paper.
Truth is, the band never disbanded. Being the loyal and loving dogs that they were, they worked for less money. I still had a roof over my head and was living more comfortably than nine-tenths of the world’s population. I’m not saying I wasn’t in a serious financial stew. I sure as shit was. But I had my health and my fighting spirit.
First thing I did was tell the naysayers—those crying out like Chicken Little that the sky was falling—to get out of my face and shut the fuck up.
I’d heard enough. Not for a minute was I considering throwing in the towel and declaring bankruptcy. I’d decided to go along with the plan devised by Mark Rothbaum and supported by my attorneys Joel Katz and Jay Goldberg and tax expert Larry Goldfein. I was going to fight the IRS.
I had to face facts: my resources were few. The IRS’s resources were unlimited. They had billions on their side. They had at their command an army of killer lawyers whose only aim was to destroy me.
When it came time to question me—a two-day ordeal scheduled at the IRS offices in Austin—I got an idea.
By then I had Honeysuckle Rose II, the second incarnation of my custom bus with a Western scene painted on the exterior.
“Let’s roll up to Austin in the bus,” I told my team, “and park it right in front of their building.”
That’s what we did.
The first sessions started at about eleven. I showed up in my usual jeans, T-shirt, and jogging shoes. I expected to be facing some sharpshooter from New York City. But they threw me a curve. The attorney was a good ol’ boy from my part of Texas.
“You don’t mind if I call you Willie, do you?”
“Not at all.”
“Feel like I’ve known you all my life.”
“Feeling’s mutual.”
He looked down at my jogging shoes and said, “Well, Willie, you’re living proof that we Hill County boys know a comfortable pair of shoes when we see ’em. Wish I could dress comfortably as you. Meanwhile, it’s an honor to have you up here.”
I liked this guy. How couldn’t I? We knew a ton of folks in common, and the chitchat went on for some time. But I also knew that having someone from my part of Texas to do the questioning was a way to throw me off guard. Despite the man’s easy charm, I stayed on guard. I gave my usual monosyllabic answers. I stuck to what I knew and only what I knew. Their strategy didn’t work. Meanwhile, mine did.
My strategy was to position my bus so that by lunchtime all of downtown Austin knew where it was parked. By the time we took our twelve-thirty break, there was a huge crowd of fans lined up outside Honeysuckle Rose II. One by one I let them on the bus, signed whatever they wanted me to sign, and let the
m take as many pictures with me as they liked. That took nearly three hours. When we got back up to the IRS offices, I apologized for the delay.
By the second day, the Austin crowds had grown so big that police were brought in to keep the lines orderly. Not only that, but the clerks and secretaries at the IRS were sneaking out to come to the bus for autographs of their own.
When the last session was over and I still hadn’t veered from my usual answers of “Yup,” “Nope,” and “Don’t rightly recall,” the lawyer asked one last question.
“You sure you secretly never went to one of those fancy law schools back east, Willie?”
“Never went further than Abbott High. Abbott is where I got all my smarts. I was one of those Fighting Panthers. Fact is, I still remember the sign over the school gym that said, ‘A winner never quits and a quitter never wins.’ Been trying to live by those words ever since.”
“Well, Willie,” he said, “I’d say you’re doing a pretty good job.”
That’s when I got another pretty good idea:
While I didn’t have the past-due tax money the Feds were demanding from me, I had something else: my music. I could always sing for my supper. I could make a couple of records and give all the proceeds to the IRS. I’d even call them The IRS Tapes and Who’ll Buy My Memories? The feds went along with the plan.
I cut down on production costs by being the only musician. I simply sang and accompanied myself to a selection of twenty-four songs. Just bare-bones Willie singing the blues.
I picked the tunes that fit my mood: “It’s Not Supposed to Be That Way,” “Permanently Lonely,” “Home Motel,” “Yesterday’s Wine,” “Wake Me When It’s Over,” “Remember the Good Times,” and especially “What Can You Do to Me Now?”
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