Once Bill’s script was ready to go, I fulfilled my longtime dream of playing the stranger himself and got Morgan Fairchild to play my wife. Katharine Ross played my other woman. I put a couple of guys from the band—Bee Spears and Paul English—into the film along with lots of other pals like Austin lawyer Joe Longley. It was a homegrown affair.
Not knowing what I was doing, it made sense that I’d run out of money before finishing principal photography. When that happened, Carolyn Mugar, a good friend from Boston, came to the rescue with a cool half million.
Naturally we were shooting at Pedernales, the only logical place for a true-blue Willie Nelson Western. Right next to my golf course, I built an 1870s frontier town. We put up the facades of a bank, stables, stores, and a church. Eventually we actually built a freestanding saloon that was later named World Headquarters. To this day you’ll find me there playing poker and dominoes while bullshitting with the boys.
“What are you naming this town, Willie?” I was asked when the set was completed.
“Luck,” I said. “Gonna put up a sign that spells it out: ‘When you’re here, you’re in Luck. When you’re not here, you’re outta Luck.’ ”
All during the production, I was in Luck. The filming went smoothly and the final cut impressed all my backers. They were even more impressed when Shep Gordon, the famous rock manager, decided to buy the finished product, paying enough so that my investors got reimbursed with a 25 percent profit on their money.
Looking at the film today, I still marvel at the beauty of Neil Roach’s fine photography. The costumes are authentic as hell. The action scenes keep you at the edge of your seat. And the acting—if you don’t mind me playing another version of myself—is pretty goddamn good. Most importantly, I got the thing made. And when it was all over, I got to keep my frontier town intact. I was still in Luck.
Getting rerooted in Abbott did something else for me. It reminded me that I’d started out as a member of the Future Farmers of America. Being back home allowed me to see how the small farmers were doing. The answer was, not well.
In 1985, I was talking to Bob Dylan at a Live Aid concert.
“This is a great thing, Willie,” he said. “But wouldn’t it be great if we could do something like this to help out small farmers in America?”
Dylan’s question hit me hard. I started researching exactly what was happening in American agriculture. In the late summer of that same year, I went to do my annual concert at the Saint Louis fair, where Illinois governor Jim Thompson always showed up. Big Jim and I would sit around, eat a bowl of chili, drink a beer, and talk about the world. This time I told him about Dylan’s remark. Having heard from my farmer friends about their life-and-death struggles, I was concerned.
Big Jim shared those same concerns. He said that the situation for the family farm had never been worse.
“Well, sir,” I said, “we’re going to do something about it. We’re going to raise some serious money.”
“When?”
“Right now. I’ll put on a show to raise money, and get my friends to help out.”
“Who do you think you can round up?”
“I can think of a couple of pickers and singers willing to help.”
“If you want to put on the show in Illinois, I’ll help with the arrangements.”
“Let’s do it,” I told Big Jim.
I called Dylan, Neil Young, and John Mellencamp and asked them to perform. They all agreed. The show sold out in twenty-one days. And only weeks later—in September—I was standing onstage at the University of Illinois’s Memorial Stadium in Champaign, staring out at some eighty thousand fans. Everyone showed up. Beyond Bob, Neil, and John, there was Billy Joel, B.B. King, Waylon, Kris, Merle, Roy Orbison, Charley Pride, Bonnie Raitt, Loretta Lynn, June Carter, and Johnny Cash. We wound up raising $7 million for family farmers.
It didn’t stop there. The fate of the small farmer was a topic I couldn’t ignore. More I read, more motivated I became to help publicize their plight. I went to Washington to testify before a Senate committee, telling them how in recent years we’d gone from eight million small-family farmers to two million. Every week hundreds of farms were going under. The legislation was woefully inadequate. They had one bill called Freedom to Farm, but its provisions were so lame that the farmers called it the Freedom to Fail bill.
“If we abandon the farmer,” I testified, “we’re abandoning the essential values that made America great. It’s all about our relationship to the land—how we cultivate it, how it yields goodness and provides us with sustenance. And it’s not just economic sustenance. It’s spiritual sustenance. It’s our heart. We need to make sure that our heart stays strong. We need to stand up for the farmers—today, tomorrow, and as long as it takes to guarantee their survival.”
I set up a hotline back at Pedernales where farmers in need could call, voice their complaints, and get some guidance about where to find relief. The calls came in by the thousands.
I also vowed to make Farm Aid a yearly event. When the first one was such a huge hit, I asked my good friend Carolyn Mugar to serve as executive director. It was Carolyn’s leadership that turned the shows into an institution respected the world over.
In 1986, I turned my annual Fourth of July picnic into a Farm Aid benefit. We held it at Manor Downs, a racetrack outside Austin. The lineup was the most freewheeling and multigenre ever: we had everyone from Stevie Ray Vaughan to Rick James to Julio Iglesias to the Beach Boys to Los Lobos.
I’m not saying that my friends and I single-handedly saved the farmer or stopped the suffering of those looking to make a living off the land. We did not. In this postmodern world of corporate greed and government indifference, the family farm continues to struggle. But the struggle is a noble one. And I’m proud to be part of it—and that after thirty years, we’re still going strong.
27
FALLING IN LOVE
BACK IN ABBOTT, OL’ ZEKE and I were talking about midlife crises.
“They say it happens to a man when he’s in his forties or fifties,” said Zeke.
“Well, I’m fifty-two,” I said, “and I haven’t had no crisis yet.”
“Are you kidding? You’ve had one after another. You just don’t call it that.”
“What do I call it?” I asked.
“Falling in love. Every time you fall in love it’s another goddamn crisis.”
I started to argue with Zeke, but stopped.
Reason I stopped was ’cause I knew my old friend was right.
But before I start yakking about the next great love affair in my life—the one that continues to this day—I should point out that my oldest love, and the one to which I’ve been truest, was always music. I never cheated on music and music never cheated on me. Music has always been the connection that led to my deepest friendships. If I meet a musician who has different political and religious views than mine, those differences dissolve the minute we start to play. The musical discussion never involves bitterness or jealousy. It’s all about working together in the cause of beauty.
I say all this because on paper, the combination of me, Waylon, Kris Kristofferson, and Johnny Cash might not make a lot of sense. Waylon, of course, was a wild man, not known for taming his tongue. He’d say anything to anyone anytime he pleased. Johnny was a straight-up patriot. I say that without prejudice. Johnny championed the cause of the Native American back in the early sixties, when to do so was hardly in fashion. His album Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian took a hard look at the injustices suffered by the various tribes. Johnny had a high political consciousness, but one that came out of a traditionally conservative tradition. On the other hand, Kris was a firebrand liberal, a former Rhodes scholar and longtime opponent of American adventurism abroad.
Then there was me and my peculiar politics. I wasn’t a card-carrying member of any political party, but I did have my causes. I was a flag-waving advocate of legalizing pot and utilizing cannabis in dozens of positive
ways. I had my save-the-family-farm crusade that I’d plug at every opportunity.
Not since the days of Ray Price and his Cherokee Cowboys, though, had I been a member of a communal touring group.
That all changed when Johnny called me to say he was putting together a TV Christmas show to be filmed in Montreux, Switzerland, for worldwide viewing.
“I want you, Willie, and I want you to bring Waylon and Kris.”
Didn’t at all mind being a guest on someone’s television show.
“It’s more than a one-shot,” Johnny added. “I want the four of us to cut a record together in Nashville before the show airs so we have something to sell during the holiday season.”
When I didn’t say yes immediately, John prodded me. “Hell, Willie, you’ve recorded with everyone in the world except me. Don’t you think it’s time?”
“I do, John,” I said. “Let me talk to the boys.”
Waylon was willing, but Kris was hesitant. He wasn’t sure he’d fit in.
“You can use the occasion to pitch us some of your new songs,” I said.
That’s all Kris needed to hear. He was in.
Chips Moman, who ran the recording session, showed us an original by Jimmy Webb called “The Highwayman.” There were four verses, one for each of us. All I had to do was read the first one to know that the song would work perfectly.
I was a highwayman, along the coach roads I did ride
With sword and pistol by my side
Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade
Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade
The bastards hung me in the spring of ’25
But I am still alive
Kris played the part of a sailor, Waylon a dam builder, and Johnny a starship commander.
You wouldn’t think that our four uneven voices would blend. But they did. They fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. The song and the album were hits.
During a photo session to promote the show, the photographer asked, “Of all places, why in the world are you guys taping a Christmas show in Montreux, Switzerland?”
Before anyone had a chance to respond, Waylon spoke up.
“Because that’s where the baby Jesus was born.”
Our successful show gave birth to another Highwaymen project, a remaking of the old classic Western Stagecoach.
Kris, who had become a bona fide leading man after making A Star Is Born with Barbra Streisand, was reluctant. He didn’t like the script. Johnny and Waylon were willing ’cause they thought it’d be fun, another way to bolster the Highwaymen myth. I went along ’cause of my love of Westerns. They gave me the title of executive producer, but only ’cause they thought I’d keep Kris in line. I couldn’t. Every time he spoke to the press, he spoke candidly.
“The screenplay is shit,” he said, “and I expect the film to be no better.”
Johnny became quickly disillusioned on account of how shabbily the production company was treating the Native American actors. I stepped in to make sure that treatment improved.
As the lead actors, we ourselves were treated shabbily. We’d get up at the crack of dawn for early morning shoots, get in our costumes, go through makeup, and arrive on time only to learn that the scene had been scrapped. That happened again and again.
All I wanted was to make merry and keep things light.
In one scene a female character, played by Bing Crosby’s daughter Mary, was giving birth. Before they had a chance to pull out the baby, I pulled out a live rabbit. Everyone howled. Everyone, that is, except the director.
The most memorable thing about Stagecoach wasn’t the movie itself. It was a beguiling young lady applying the makeup.
Meet Ann Marie D’Angelo. Everyone called her Annie.
By then I was separated from Connie, who, like Martha and Shirley before her, had tried her level best to put up with me. No easy task. My years with Connie were not notable for fidelity on my part. I don’t say that to be prideful. I say it to be truthful. The plain truth was that, despite my love for Connie and loyalty to my children, I had wandered off more than once. It got to where Connie had had enough.
I had no defense. By then I was famous for avoiding marital confrontations. Can’t quite recall the sequence of events—whether Connie kicked me out or whether I just took a hike. Either way, by the time I showed up in Tucson to make Stagecoach, my marriage had collapsed.
I met Annie in the makeup trailer. She was pretty, she was smart as a whip, and she sparkled with energy. She was also super self-assured. I loved talking to her.
Our first conversation involved my hair. It was on the long side. The producers had implored her, as the chief makeup artist, to ask me to cut it. They thought it was out of character with Doc Holliday, the man I was playing.
When she made the request, though, I could tell that her heart wasn’t in it.
“What do you really think of the idea of my cutting my hair?” I asked her.
“Personally, I think it’s unnecessary and ridiculous.”
I couldn’t help but smile—and so did she.
That was the start of a friendship. I really wanted to be more than friends but I learned that when it came to dating men, Annie had rules: no celebrities, no divorcés, and no one with kids. I struck out on all three counts.
One night during the shoot the whole crew decided to go to a jazz club. We rode over there on my bus. That’s when I asked Annie if she knew how to play dominoes. She didn’t but was eager to learn. Her brilliant mind went right to work and she caught on fast.
Jazz clubs are good places to get to know a lady.
Jazz is a make-it-up-as-you-go-along kind of music. I see courting the same way. You go with the flow. It helps when the musicians on the bandstand are playing a bluesy tune. The blues might be sad, but the blues are sexy. And when you don’t play the blues too loudly, you don’t drown out the conversation of a man trying to get to know a woman.
From the get-go, I knew Annie was special. She was fine, but also feisty.
“Where’s all that fire come from?” I asked as we sat alone at a corner table.
“Sicily. My father’s people are hot-blooded Sicilians. My mother’s family is from Ofena, Italy, near L’Aquila.”
“Right there we have a lot in common,” I said. “I grew up right next to Italy and Aquilla.”
“I thought you grew up in Texas.”
“I did. Italy, Texas, and Aquilla, Texas, are little towns close to Abbott, where I lived. I visited them all the time.”
She laughed.
It’s always great when you can make a lady laugh, and vice versa. Annie and I loved each other’s humor. Over the course of making this movie, we were together from early morning, when she applied the makeup, to late at night, when she removed it. It was during these long days that we realized how much we loved spending time together. Didn’t take long to realize we were falling in love.
She told me how she’d grown up in L.A., where, through her cousin Joe Laird, she wound up working at the old Desilu Studios. From there, she became one of the industry’s leading makeup artists, working on film projects all over the map. She was a strong and independent woman who had the kind of honest tell-it-like-it-is attitude that I admired.
She told me the story about how once, while working on an Elmore Leonard film in Detroit, she was alone at the end of a long night’s shoot. It was 2 a.m. Everyone had left, no cabs to be found, and she faced a long walk alone through a bad neighborhood back to her hotel.
“It was probably a silly thing to do,” she said, “but I did it. About two blocks before I got to the hotel, two guys started following me. I picked up my pace. So did they. The faster I walked, the closer they came. I was almost at the hotel but knew I couldn’t make it before they caught up with me. So I turned and faced them. I actually moved closer to them and said, ‘Where the fuck is the hotel entrance?’ They weren’t expecting that. They ended up walking me to the door, where the concierge, on seeing these thu
gs, freaked out.”
Because Annie had a keen sense of right and wrong, she had to be convinced that I really was free, that my marriage was long over, and that my celebrity and status as a dad would in no way hurt our relationship.
Annie was perceptive. Not only did she have a highly developed sense of world politics, but she knew her personal politics. She was an expert on reading people. Once she saw that I was sincere, I saw that I had a chance.
Then, like the old song says, love walked right in. When that happened, everything fell into place. Love is the great persuader. It’s love that changes minds and melts hearts. It’s love that brought Annie and me together, and it’s love that, nearly thirty years later, has kept us together. When it comes to romantic relationships, that’s a record for me. Took me damn near a lifetime to get it right.
28
KEEP ON TRUCKIN’
AT THE START OF THE EIGHTIES, I did a tour with Bonnie Raitt on a few of the Hawaiian Islands. That’s when I fell in love with Maui. I bought some beachfront property in a sleepy little town called Paia. Things are pretty kicked back all over the island, but Paia has its own super-relaxed vibe. Folks there leave you alone and aren’t too impressed with show business. My kind of place.
Maui has this spiritual quality. It’s in the air, the mountains covered in mist, the exotic plants, the wildlife, the sea, the sky, the wise kupuna who tells stories that connect the mysteries of nature to the mysteries of man. It’s a place whose natural beauty has me thinking on the eternal questions. Doesn’t matter that I don’t have the answers. The questions themselves are inspiring.
“I got a question for you, Willie,” said my friend Zeke, calling me in Maui from back in Texas.
“What is it?”
“I know you’ve fallen in love with that island. But you don’t plan to stay there forever, do you?”
“Just for a spell,” I said. “What’s on your mind, Zeke?”
“That Fourth of July picnic of yours. You’ve held it about everywhere but Abbott. What’s wrong with Abbott? Abbott ain’t good enough for you?”
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