“Was Bee the angel you were writing about?” someone wanted to know.
“He sure as hell was tonight.”
Spirit, the album that came off like a quiet conversation between me and sister Bobbie, not only had a different sound than the big orchestrations of Healing Hands of Time, but it had a different look. In the cover photo, I wasn’t exactly sporting formal evening wear. I had my cowboy hat, my headband, and my old disheveled look.
“This one reviewer says he doesn’t like the way you keep changing up your music and your image,” an associate told me. “He thinks you’re confusing everyone. What do you think?”
“I think that’s good.”
“It’s good to be confused?”
“It’s good to change. If the change brings about confusion, who cares? Confusion makes you think. And that’s another good thing.”
Some other folks were questioning my choice of hiring Daniel Lanois to produce my next record. They thought he’d be too far-out, too experimental and distant from the kind of music I made. I disagreed. I had heard the album he produced for Bob Dylan, Time Out of Mind, and his work with Emmylou Harris, Wrecking Ball, and I knew he’d be perfect.
He was. Daniel is all about ambience. He creates deep, dark, brooding moods. He found an old abandoned movie theater in Oxnard, California, where he set up the recording equipment. He wanted to capture an open and arid feel, complete with echoes of ghosts from the past. Like me, he was inspired by mystery. Uncertainty didn’t bother him.
On the album we called Teatro, Daniel had Emmylou Harris shadow me on the choruses. Emmylou sang beautifully, giving the stories a haunting shade of blue. Daniel also made good use of Bobbie and especially Mickey Raphael’s soulful mouth harp, which, like Emmylou’s voice, followed me wherever I went.
Daniel encouraged me to go back to my earliest days and revisit some of my earliest songs.
“Those are some of the deepest blues songs you’ve ever written,” he said. “Let’s see what they sound like in this broken-down old theater.”
So I went back and got “Home Motel”—“just a place to stay, a crumbling last resort when day is through.… My home motel on Lost Love Avenue.” I revisited “I Never Cared for You” and “Darkness on the Face of the Earth” and an old one I wrote with Ray Price, “I’ve Just Destroyed the World (I’m Living In).”
To contrast the old and the new, Daniel had the good sense to employ the brilliant young jazz pianist Brad Mehldau, who sprinkled his own style of fairy dust on all the right spots.
The result was a radically different sound. Lanois created an aura of an era long past, as though we were going back in time to locate something that had been lost long ago. Most producers would work to make my old songs sound new. But Daniel managed to make them sound even older. And deeper. And stranger. And I couldn’t have been happier.
The last cut was something new, an instrumental mixing the bluesy feeling of Django with a sense of romantic love. Because the love in my life had been so powerfully renewed by my wife, Annie, I named the song after her.
The nineties were about to fade into the sunset. We were about to slip into a new century. And soon I’d slip out of my sixties and into my seventies.
I looked back at this past decade with some satisfaction. When it came to the IRS, I had dodged a bullet. The Highwaymen tour had gone around the world. Not only was it musically satisfying, but it was a source of great personal pleasure.
And Annie and I had decided to make Maui our main home. Seemed like the calmest place to raise the boys. In Paia, no one made a fuss over us. Naturally we’d continue to spend time at the Pedernales ranch. Because Pedernales had the horses, the golf course, and the studio, I couldn’t go more than a month or so without visiting my Texas homestead. And of course we’d always drop by our house in Abbott to say hello to my oldest friends and revisit my deepest memories.
31
RAINBOWS
THE FIRST SIX DECADES OF my life had been filled with drama. Watching the pink-purple sunset from my living room in Hawaii, I couldn’t help but hope that the coming years would bring less drama.
For now, I just wanted to kick back, enjoy a smoke, and listen to the waves splash against the shore.
But beautiful as it was, I couldn’t sit there for long.
Something started calling to me.
It was that same “something” that had always been calling.
New music.
Old music.
New songs to sing in old ways.
Old songs to sing in new ways.
Any way you looked at it, I had to get up and get going.
I heard a new riff in my head.
I heard a different kind of lick.
That’s when I knew it was time to pick up Trigger and see where this new lick would lead.
And of course it led where it always led:
Back out on the road.
Maui isn’t the only place where I’ve seen rainbows radiant enough to bring tears to my eyes.
From the bedroom in the back of my bus, I’ve looked out the window as we wound our way over the Rockies. In the aftermath of a thunderstorm, I’ve seen double arcs of dazzling light. Driving up the rugged coast of Maine, through the Louisiana swamps, along the 636-mile highway that links Dallas to El Paso, I’ve witnessed rainbows that seemed to stretch halfway across the world.
Each time I see one my reaction is the same:
My heart starts to sing. I see that miracles surround us. Just when we think our lives are monotonous and predictable, miracles pop up out of nowhere. The miracle of a rainbow turns dullness into brilliance. It’s a miracle that says light comes out of darkness. I need to remind myself of that miracle because, as a writer, darkness has been one of my main subjects.
I’ve spent a lifetime expressing the emotions that come with lost love. I expressed those emotions as a child—in poems and songs—even before I had experienced the feelings themselves. Can’t tell you why. Maybe it was the music I heard on the radio, whether Hank Williams or Big Bill Broonzy. Or maybe it came from missing my mother and father, who had wandered off early to find their own fates. Whatever it was, it put me in touch with loneliness and heartbreak. My early hits—the songs that established my name in the music game—all had a strong tinge of sadness. And yet it wasn’t sadness that saw me through my day. It was optimism. It was a belief that, no matter how dire or confused my circumstances, a rainbow might just light up my sky.
As I approached seventy, I didn’t at all feel like an old man. So in order to usher in the new century, I decided to do a record, suggested by my daughter Amy, mainly of children’s songs. As a kid, Amy used to watch the Muppets and listen to Kermit the Frog’s “Rainbow Connection,” the song Paul Williams wrote about people of all kinds looking for that elusive link of love. I sang other kids’ songs like “Won’t You Ride in My Little Red Wagon” and “Ole Blue.” In order to please the adults, I added grown-up stuff like “Playin’ Dominoes and Shootin’ Dice” and Mickey Newbury’s powerful “The Thirty-Third of August.”
Rainbow Connection was one of the simplest albums I ever made. It was a production that followed the creed “less is more.” Not so with The Great Divide, a huge Hollywood production that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The producer was Matt Serletic, who was coming off a superhit with Carlos Santana’s Supernatural, a record that sold tens of millions of copies and won a Grammy for Album of the Year.
Other than the title cut, which I wrote with jazz guitarist Jackie King, Matt had me singing other people’s songs. There were duets with Lee Ann Womack, Kid Rock, Sheryl Crow, Brian McKnight, and Bonnie Raitt. Taken together, the overall sound reminded me of an epic Western movie. There was a heroic quality to many of the stories, like “Last Stand in Open Country” and “Don’t Fade Away.”
A friend asked me about the record.
“You’re always saying how much you love simplicity, Willie,” he said. “You’re always talking about how much y
ou wanna get back to the basics, and how you’re your own best producer. Yet here you are, turning the record over to someone else who’s working up these tunes to a fever pitch. I don’t understand.”
“Who doesn’t like success?” I asked. “If every now and then I can hook up with a highly successful producer, why not? He puts it all together for me. As long as I can relate to the songs and the arrangements, I got no problem putting someone else in charge. My job is easy. Just go in there and sing.”
“And what about your integrity?”
“My integrity is what it’s always been: a flexible thing, just like my music. It can bend this way and that. Even during those years in Nashville, when I was being produced in ways that didn’t suit me, I went along with the program. Never felt like I was compromising my integrity. Always took the attitude that said, ‘Hell, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this producer can get a hit out of me. Maybe I just gotta get out of my own way.’ Today my attitude hasn’t changed. If Matt Serletic can help keep me on the charts, I’d be a fool not to give him that chance. I suppose there are some artists who really don’t give a shit about being popular, but I ain’t one of them. Never have been. Never will be.”
The Great Divide turned out to be a great seller. I liked the way it sounded, I liked the way I sang inside all those big arrangements and alongside those intriguing duet partners. By then I had my own label, Lost Highway, and found a distribution deal with Universal Music. In the spirit of being open-minded and eager for ongoing hits, I’d continue to let other successful producers organize some albums for me. But that didn’t get in the way of my producing albums of my own, done without regard for commerce. Done just ’cause it felt right to do ’em—albums with old friends who needed a helping hand and new friends whose music appealed to me. In short, I did just about everything with everyone. That might sound like a peculiar way to go about strengthening a career in its sixth decade, but that’s me.
Early in this new century I lost two friends, two brothers who meant the world to me. Waylon Jennings died in 2002 and Johnny Cash a year later.
I looked at Waylon and Johnny as giants. They were rugged individualists and great American heroes. They each had paid deep down dues, lived through one storm after another, and survived to tell the good news. They were true to their craft, true to their friends, and spokesmen for everyday people.
Waylon was a firecracker. Essentially a sweet and loving man, he could go off like a rocket. He could be ornery. He could even be a little sneaky. But he was all heart. When it came to taking on the country music establishment, he had the guts and self-confidence to lead the way. If it weren’t for Waylon, I might still be back in Nashville looking to please the wrong people. Waylon said, “Hoss, first we got to please ourselves. Once we do that, the fans will follow us—not those guys in suits sitting behind their big desks.” Waylon had guts and grit and a singular style that put some hard rock into honky-tonk.
Johnny was a gentleman. Above all, he was a believing Christian. Many were the times when he told me that it was only his love for Jesus that saw him through. You could feel that love in everything he sang. He was a man of compassion. He championed the disadvantaged. He was one of the first artists who made it a practice to visit prisons and treat those inmates with respect. Like Waylon, he was also a brilliant writer whose songs will never die. At the center of his soul was a gentle calmness. In spite of the craziness that surrounds show business, Johnny found a way to steer a steady course. I not only loved singing with him, I loved being around him because of the self-assurance he projected. His national television show was a landmark in the history of country music.
Waylon and Johnny will live forever as two of the most beloved artists in our musical history. I’m thankful for the circumstances that led me to befriend them both.
A friend dies and you move on. You climb back on the bus, you go back onstage, you do your show, you do your job, but it’s never the same. A part of you is missing. During my seventies, I lost many parts of myself. My two bass players—David Zettner and Bee Spears—died young, each in his early sixties. They had been with me forever. They were great musicians and loyal friends. I loved them like sons.
Grady Martin, a genius guitarist and my longtime cohort, also passed away, leaving a million beautiful musical memories in his wake. Jody Payne, a brilliant rhythm guitarist for years, was gone too.
I also lost my good friend Floyd Tillman. We got to cut one last record together. That was a thrill. We joked about how I had stolen the opening notes of “Crazy” from Floyd’s “I Gotta Have My Baby Back.”
“Hell, Willie,” said Floyd, “I probably stole those same notes from someone else.”
Floyd was a pioneer of the music of my childhood, western swing. He had been the lead guitarist for Adolph Hofner and his Pearl Wranglers down in San Antone.
I looked on these losses as a natural part of aging. Yet I looked on them with great sadness. The old saying goes, “We’re born to die.” Even if I believe the opposite—that is, when we die we’re born again—that doesn’t mean death doesn’t sting. It stings hard and leaves us at a loss for words.
When I’m at a loss for words, the best thing I can do is reach for Trigger, pick out some melody—old or new, doesn’t matter—and start singing. That’s the only way for me to process grief. The contradiction never ceases to work: you sing the blues to lose the blues. You lift the burden by transferring it into a song. I’ll be damned if I know why or how that miracle takes place, but it always does.
As I walked through my seventies and started losing friends, I felt an even more urgent need to make music. Every year I looked forward to the Fourth of July picnic and the Farm Aid concert. Never missed a one. It was a chance to connect with old pals and make new ones.
“These landmark events that have been going on for decades,” wrote one critic, “have become a permanent part of the American landscape. And the musical eclecticism that characterizes them is due largely to the generosity of spirit that is, in fact, the hallmark of Willie Nelson’s musical aesthetic.”
Fancy words—but it felt good to read ’em.
And it felt good to keep working. In these past ten years or so, as I moved from my seventies into my eighties, I performed on average some 150 one-nighters a year. Didn’t see it as a burden, but a blessing.
Sure there were times when the hassle of travel had me saying I was gonna quit. But after a week or two on my ranch in Texas or at my place in Paia, I got to itchin’ and scratchin’ and knew what to do. I knew it was time to go out on the road and sing for my supper.
The other day, just to shock me, my manager, Mark, came on the bus with a grocery bag filled with CDs. He placed them on my desk. Piled high, they totaled around twenty-four.
“Look ’em over,” he said.
I did. They all carried my name. I knew them all.
“These are the records you’ve turned out,” said Mark, “in these past ten years alone. You’ve been averaging two albums a year.”
I had to smile. It was Mark’s way of patting me on the back. He knew me well enough to know I hadn’t kept count or realized that the last decade’s output has been the strongest in my career.
I looked over the CDs. Each one brought back good memories.
Milk Cow Blues was a blues record with me playing with everyone from B.B. King to Dr. John to Susan Tedeschi.
Countryman, produced by Don Was, was my first all-reggae album. Better late than never.
It Always Will Be was an old-fashioned Nashville record of duets with my daughter Paula, Lucinda Williams, and Norah Jones. I’d heard Norah and her band the Little Willies back in New York. Norah became a great friend. One of her band members gave me my greatest compliment when he said, “Willie Nelson plays guitar like Django with one finger.”
You Don’t Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker was a special project. I’d known Cindy for fifty years. She was one of the best country writers of all time. I know that Ray Charles, who had a
huge hit with “You Don’t Know Me,” felt the same. Fred Foster, who also knew Cindy, produced the record and put me together with Buddy Emmons on steel and Johnny Gimble on fiddle—musicians who, like me, understood the country music tradition of the forties and fifties that Cindy represented with such tender beauty.
Cindy, who was nearing ninety, heard the record and, according to Fred, said, “I’ve had many fine recordings, but Willie’s are the only ones I’ve believed.”
I didn’t have a chance to thank her for that comment because just a few weeks after the record was released, she went on to glory.
Last of the Breed was an album that put me together with my old boss Ray Price and my forever friend Merle Haggard.
I’d probably keep doing records like Last of the Breed forever if my manager, Mark, didn’t kick my ass to make sure I stay current. Not that I mind, because staying current usually involves another series of duets. Whether it’s Shelby Lynne or Toby Keith or Joe Walsh or Rickie Lee Jones or Lee Ann Womack or Ben Harper or Carole King or Toots Hibbert or Los Lonely Boys, I’m always ready to harmonize.
I liked the title Outlaws and Angels, another duets collection, because I’ve slipped in and out of both of those categories.
Another category I always believed applied to me is jazz. I’m no Barney Kessel or Wes Montgomery or Jackie King, but I hear jazz as clearly and love it as dearly as I do any music. So when I had a chance to collaborate with Wynton Marsalis and do a live record at Wynton’s Jazz at Lincoln Center, I didn’t hesitate. I ran up to New York and brought my man Mickey Raphael along with me. When it comes to jazz, Mickey can stand alongside Toots Thielemans as one of the best of all improvisers. The record, Two Men with the Blues, was the start of what would prove to be a beautiful musical relationship with Wynton.
Just as I would never abandon country, gospel, or jazz, I would never abandon the love for the Great American Songbook that I first expressed on Stardust. I did another similar session that they called American Classic, produced by a renowned expert in the field, Tommy LiPuma. It included a duet with Diana Krall, Tommy’s protégé, and another with Norah Jones.
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