Compared to the loss of a son, material losses seemed insignificant. But they had to be dealt with. I was responsible for many more livelihoods than just my own. I finally had to face a financial nightmare that had been chasing me for years.
I could close my eyes and pretend it all wasn’t happening, but it was. I could plug my ears and block out some of the noise, but those voices came through anyway.
Those were the voices that were saying, in different ways, the same fuckin’ thing.
They were saying I was through.
PART FIVE
SPIRIT
The Future Is Now
In tae kwon do, the head-high spinning kick is a beautiful maneuver. I love doing it. Between kicks I was taught to relax. That split second between action and inaction is crucial. As the world seemed to be tumbling down around me, tae kwon do did more than keep me toned. It showed me how to keep kicking.
Some see the golf course as an arena of frustration. Not me. When my money woes were weighing down everyone around me, I saw golf as a great escape. Didn’t matter if I misdirected my drives or fucked up my putts. Out on the links, I had learned to laugh at my frustrations rather than let them laugh at me. Golf had a way of soothing my soul.
How can you explain why a man threatened with bankruptcy would take off for two or three days to go on a poker-playing marathon? I didn’t need to explain. Just needed to do it. Just needed to find a way to keep my fears for the future from overtaking my mind. Playing poker, I had no fears. All focus was on the cards, the angles, the odds, the bluffs, the dares, the motionless silent dance between me and my opponents.
My understanding was that by clinging to my faith, I’d find the wisdom to effectively deal with those lawyers.
“You still don’t have the resources, Willie,” advisers were telling me. “Make a clean break of it. Just admit that you’re dead broke and benefit from the bankruptcy laws.”
“That would mean burning too many people,” I said. “I don’t see myself doing that. I can still make good money singing songs. Long as that’s the case, I don’t have any business not honoring my past debts.”
“You’re naive.”
“More stubborn than naive. Either way, I ain’t caving. I’m moving on.”
The two albums I had made to satisfy Uncle Sam—The IRS Tapes and Who’ll Buy My Memories?—hadn’t stopped selling.
“It hasn’t sold enough to pay off your taxes,” a naysayer reminded me.
“That’s not the point,” I countered. “The point is that the IRS knows I’m trying my best to honor my debts. I’m singing for my supper. That’s all I can do.”
Then, miracle of miracles, things started to turn around.
After negotiation, the IRS dropped proceedings against me for a reduced payment of $6 million.
In the end, all the animosity melted, and that’s a beautiful thing.
Thanks to the brilliant big-picture strategy developed by Mark Rothbaum and Larry Goldfein, the IRS was no longer my adversary. In fact, the IRS proved to be downright reasonable. Adding to my good fortune, friends who had bought my properties when they were being auctioned off made sure I got them back.
When it’s on us, seems like the storm will never pass. But it always does.
30
HIGH
I’M WRITING MY LONG STORY at a time when the tide has finally turned. The idea of legalizing marijuana, whether for medical or recreational reasons, is more popular than ever. The majority of rational people have concluded that the plant is not a menace to society but can actually do good. This has been my argument for a good half century.
But twenty-five years ago, that argument was falling on deaf ears. In the early nineties, I campaigned for Gatewood Galbraith, a Lexington attorney running for governor of Kentucky on a let’s-legalize-pot platform.
He and I traveled across Kentucky in a Cadillac powered by hemp oil. Didn’t matter to me that he won only 5.3 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary. When he ran the second time, in ’95, I joined his campaign and was happy to play a benefit. He boosted his primary percentage to 9 percent. Come ’99, he switched to the Reform Party and I was right there with him. In the general election, he garnered 15 percent of the vote. I saw that as progress.
I kept hearing warnings and criticisms. Folks said that I shouldn’t associate myself with pot and potheads and bogus pot-related products. I didn’t think any of it was bogus. I thought it was good. And I didn’t give a shit whether the association hurt me or not.
I couldn’t betray marijuana any more than I could betray a family member or lifelong friend. That’s because marijuana had never betrayed me. Unlike booze, it had never made me nasty or violent. Unlike cocaine, it never sped me up or fired up my ego. Instead, it mellowed me out. Unlike acid, it never scrambled my brain. It calmed my brain. Unlike tobacco, it didn’t cause the cancer that had killed my mother and dad.
I owe marijuana a lot. As I write these words on the verge of age eighty-two, I think I can fairly make the claim that marijuana—in the place of booze, cocaine, and tobacco—has contributed to my longevity.
Back in 1994, when the world was still looking down on weed smokers, I had spent a few days in Abbott. It was one of those times when I went home just to relax and play poker with the boys. Saturday night I was driving back down to Austin when, somewhere around Waco, I got tired and figured, rather than risk a wreck, I’d pull over, climb in the backseat, and take a little snooze. Soon I was out like a light.
Next thing I knew a couple of highway patrolmen were banging on the window. There were flashlights pointed at my eyes.
“Good evening, officers,” I said.
The flashlights probed the inside of the car from top to bottom, stopping at the open ashtray.
“What’s in the ashtray?” asked one of the officers.
“A joint,” I answered.
“Are you in possession of any more illegal substances?”
“I think so,” I said. “Look under the passenger seat.”
He did and discovered a little more pot.
Off to the McLennan county jail in Waco.
I was charged with a class B misdemeanor that carried a six-month jail sentence and a big fine. I got out on $500 bail.
The court hearing didn’t happen till the following March, on the same day I was supposed to sing at the Grammys in L.A. I decided to skip the Grammys and have my day in court. My lawyer pointed out that the officers had switched off their video and audio recording system during the search. They also never offered any reason for searching my vehicle.
The judge threw out the state’s case and sent me on my way.
In order to avoid any hard feelings, I came back to Waco to play a dance, free of charge, for the Sheriffs’ Association of Texas. Just wanted to let the police officers know that it wasn’t them I disliked; it was the outmoded law against pot. I make a practice not to talk much at my performances. I’ll introduce a tune and that’s it. But on this night, playing before the sheriffs, I made an exception. In short order, I simply said that it’d be better for everyone if we legalized marijuana, regulated it and taxed it like we tax cigarettes. There was only scattered applause.
Compared to the injustices suffered by others, I didn’t suffer at all. Ray Charles told me a story about how one of his sidemen was caught with one skinny joint in Houston back in the fifties and, as a result, spent a year in the pen. When it comes to persecuting people for pot, there’s a long list of horror stories. The thing that gets me is, why? Why waste precious law enforcement resources on bullshit?
I never wasted any time in the studio. I was always eager to cut another album, especially the one called Across the Borderline.
Bob Dylan and I cowrote and sang a duet called “Heartland.” People are always asking me about my relationship with Dylan. Well, there isn’t much to it. He and I did a tour together, but during those weeks on the road our paths hardly crossed. We were friendly—and we surely respected each oth
er—but Bob is private and I’m not pushy. Forgot which one of us suggested that we collaborate. Doesn’t matter ’cause it was a good idea. He sent me a track and I sent him back a verse of lyrics. He added on some lyrics, and from then on we completed the song through the mail. We had similar views about what was happening in America, so the theme emerged from both of our hearts.
There’s a home place under fire tonight in the heartland
And the bankers are takin’ my home and my land from me
My American dream
Fell apart at the seams
You tell me what it means
I was reluctant to sing “Graceland” ’cause I thought Paul Simon had nailed it in his original version. But Paul insisted and was also gracious enough to give me another song—“American Tune”—that carried the same Simon signature of deep soul.
I sang Peter Gabriel’s “Don’t Give Up” with Sinead O’Connor, and Turner Stephen Bruton’s “Getting Over You” with Bonnie Raitt.
The album was filled with brilliant songs by brilliant writers. I especially loved John Hiatt’s highly original “(The) Most Unoriginal Sin.”
I added a few originals of my own. The one that has lasted longest was built on a contradiction. I like contradictions. I like what the great American poet Walt Whitman wrote in Leaves of Grass: “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.” The contradiction that interested me had to do with movement. Moving through my sixties, I realized that even when I was still, I was still moving—which was why I called the song “Still Is Still Moving to Me.”
Still is still moving to me
I swim like a fish in the sea all the time
But if that’s what it takes to be free I don’t mind
Still is still moving to me, still is still moving to me
And it’s hard to explain how I feel
It won’t go in words but I know that it’s real
I can be moving or I can be still
But still is still moving to me, still is still moving to me
When Across the Borderline came out, it did fine. “Still Is Still Moving to Me,” the first single, was a solid hit. The album didn’t sell millions, but it sold hundreds of thousands. I was pleased, but the Nashville division of Columbia/Sony wasn’t.
This was the same period when my contract was up. I didn’t think much about it. For the past eighteen years, starting with Red Headed Stranger, I’d been churning out best-selling records for the label and naturally presumed they’d pick up my option.
But then during a meeting in Nashville they told my manager Mark they were going to drop me. I wasn’t there but from what I heard Mark nearly lost it. When the executive announced the news, Mark lunged at him and was ready to punch him out before someone restrained him. Mark’s my great defender, and I appreciate his passion, but this was one instance when I didn’t share it. To be honest, I didn’t really give a shit.
The label had purged one exec who was loyal to me and hired another who wasn’t. This new man looked at country music and saw stars like Garth Brooks and Alan Jackson dominating the charts. My sales were respectable; theirs were spectacular. I could understand how this young lion might see me as dead weight.
“It’s outrageous,” said Mark. “Especially in light of the fact that you’ve made these people millions.”
“The operative word,” I said, “is ‘made.’ That’s past tense.”
“But you’re more creative than ever, Willie.”
“No need to preach to the choir. And no need to be all that surprised. I knew this was a cold-blooded business back forty years ago when I recorded for Pappy Daily down in Houston. With these big corporations, it’s only gotten colder.”
“At the very least they owe you respect.”
“The only thing those bean counters respect is beans. You’re taking it personally, Mark. I’m not. I’m not worried about a thing. I got my own studio. I got new songs on my brain. I got the willingness to record ’em. And I got faith that we’ll have an easy time finding new friends willing to put ’em out.”
As irony would have it, it was old friends who put out my new stuff, which was made up mainly of old songs. Mark got me a one-shot deal with Liberty, the label where I had recorded back in the sixties. Liberty was now a division of Capitol Records. I decided to go back to a Stardust vibe. Rather than use my facilities at the Pedernales ranch, I flew to L.A. and worked at Capitol’s famous studio, where Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole had recorded. I turned production duties over to Jimmy Bowen.
Big arrangements with big strings let me shed new light on old songs like “Funny How Time Slips Away,” “Crazy,” and “Night Life,” as well as newer songs like “(How Will I Know) I’m Falling in Love Again” and the title track, “Healing Hands of Time.”
Someone asked, “Are you healing from the way the last label gave you the boot?”
“Hell, no,” I said. “I’m not even thinking about that. Life’s always about healing. That’s because life is always filled with hurting. If we don’t heal, we turn cynical and bitter. Healing is what lets us push past the pain.”
To sing old standards like “All the Things You Are,” “Oh, What It Seemed to Be,” and “I’ll Be Seeing You” was part of the healing. It didn’t matter that these songs had been sung a thousand times before by a thousand different singers. In fact, that made it better. It was evidence that these old melodies and old lyrics, like old prayers, had proven their power. They touched people’s minds, they stirred people’s hearts, they stirred up emotions about long-lost pains and pleasures once forgotten and now remembered.
When someone suggested that I dress up in a formal tux for the cover photo, someone else said, “That’ll mess up Willie’s image. He’ll never do it.”
So naturally that’s just what I did. Even combed my hair and gathered it in a ponytail. I figured messing up my image was a good thing.
Also figured that, after doing this lush album with a thousand strings soaring behind me, I’d go the other way. I’d strip down naked. Rather than hire out a producer to do the planning, I’d plan the thing myself. My plan was to keep it super-simple. Go back to my Pedernales studio. Go back to bare bones. Get to the Spirit, which was what I called the record.
It came about because the family band was off for a few weeks. Sister Bobbie and I had done a show—just the two of us—in Santa Fe that reminded me of when we had been little kids falling in love with music. That love was suddenly refreshed. I wanted that sense of rediscovery on my next record.
So in the studio it was just me and Bobbie with sparse accompaniment. There was nothing electric. The lights were low and the mood was nostalgic. The words I wrote for “Your Memory Won’t Die in My Grave” best sum up the feeling I needed to express.
Been feelin’ kind of free, but I sure do feel lonesome
Baby’s takin’ a trip, but she ain’t takin’ me
I’ve been feelin’ kinda free, but I’d rather feel your arms around me
’Cause you’re takin’ away everything that I wanted
There’s an old hollow tree where we carved our initials
And I said I love you and you said you love me
It’s a memory today it’ll be a memory tomorrow
I hope you’ll be happy someday
Your memory won’t die in my grave
The other titles convey that same sense of loss: “I’m Not Trying to Forget You,” “Too Sick to Pray,” “I’m Waiting Forever,” “I Guess I’ve Come to Live Here in Your Eyes.”
One of the beautiful things about making music with Bobbie is how her abiding faith washes over me. That faith led me to write,
I thought about trees
And how much I’d like to climb one
I thought about friends
And how rare it is to find one
I thought about you
The most gentle, sweet, and kind one
I thought about you, Lord
I thought about life
And the way that things are goin’
I thought about love
And the pain there is in growin’
And I thought about you
The one who is all-knowin’
I thought about you, Lord
I thought about you
I thought about you
And the songs that I keep singin’
I thought about you
And the joy that they keep bringin’
Wrote another one called “We Don’t Run.” Friends asked me whether I was talking about a woman or God. Truth is, I don’t like to answer those questions. Don’t like to explain my own songs because maybe the song will say something to you that wasn’t my intention. Well, if that’s the case, I couldn’t be happier. Once the song comes out of me, it’s yours. You make of it what you will. Don’t want my explanation to get in your way.
We don’t run, we don’t compromise
We don’t quit, we never do
We look for love, we find it in the eyes
The eyes of me and the eyes of you
You are the road, you are the only way
I’ll follow you forevermore
We’ll look for love, we’ll find it in the eyes
The eyes that see through all the doors
There is a train that races through the night
On rails of steel that reach the soul
Fueled by fire as soft as candlelight
But it warms the heart of a love grown cold
So if you ask me if my song is about an earthly love or a divine love, I’ll say I don’t know. You tell me.
Few years back I wrote a song called “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground.” Some folks said it was about a lost love of mine. Some folks even wanted me to name the love. So just to confuse everyone, my bass player, Bee Spears, dressed up in ballet tights and during a gig at Caesars Palace in Vegas he came flying in on suspended wires just behind my head.
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