When he wasn’t gigging, Willie was sitting in. “He used to sit in whenever he was in town,” said Charlie Owens, the steel player in the house band at Jimmy’s Westland Club on Highway 80 West, the only after-hours country venue in the county. “We got the overflow from all these other clubs. It went all night long. We played from midnight to four-thirty in the morning. It was dance music, a lot of Hank Thompson songs. Bob Wills, Ray Price, whatever was hot on the radio, we’d do.”
Jam sessions broke out frequently, though they were hardly tolerated by club management. “The pedal steel was real popular then,” said Owens, who played one. “Jimmy Day was playing with Ray Price, Buddy Emmons was with Ernest Tubb—they’d all come to the Westland Club and set up and kill the club. They’d get to playing jam music, and no one would get on the dance floor.”
Willie was another sit-in, though he was no Day or Emmons. “To tell you the truth, he didn’t impress me all that much,” Charlie Owens said. “His phrasing was real odd. It was hard to work with him with that offbeat phrasing. He’d drop fifteen words in there real quick, but he was staying in meter, he wasn’t breaking time. He was let go around here three or four times because people didn’t enjoy dancing to his music.”
Freddy Powers remembered trying to keep up with him the first time they played together. “He’d play so far behind the beat, it’d mess me and my bass player up. You had to really concentrate and look at each other, not listen to Willie.”
Willie also sat in at the Tracer Club, a new-concept nightclub where each table had its own telephone, so a guy could ring up a good-looking chick at the next table or buy her a drink. The house band at the Tracer was the Ron-Dels, a white-boy blues, rock, and country band led by a soulful singer named Delbert McClinton and his buddies Ronnie Kelly and Billy Ray Sanders.
Willie picked up day jobs wherever he could. Shortly after he returned to Fort Worth from Vancouver, Willie’s father found him temp work at Bailey Grain on the North Side following a fire at the grain warehouse. The burned grain had to be removed from the grain elevators. Willie filled out a W-4 form, listing his address as 1512 Sharondale on the south side of Fort Worth. One of his first tasks was to drive a cat whose fur was singed to the veterinarian and then pick it up. The rest of the time, he was down in the fifty-six-foot elevators, shoveling out the burned material. One morning, owner Frank Bailey climbed to the top of one elevator and found Willie sleeping, obviously worn out from working a gig the night before. Bailey was so frightened by what he saw—if Willie had rolled six inches in his sleep, he would have fallen into the elevator and surely died—that he fired him on the spot.
Willie hired out as a carpet installer’s helper but was fired for spending too much time writing lyrics instead of rolling carpet, and he sold encyclopedias on the telephone, then followed up on prospects with in-person visits.
For a few weeks, he found steady work at the Premier service station at Main and Berry, owned by Paul Tracy, Bobbie’s husband. The low-maintenance job freed him to roam the clubs at nights, and if he fell asleep at work, it was unlikely he’d get fired. Plus, if there were mechanical problems with the used car Bobbie and Paul bought him, he could get it fixed and get away with owing his brother-in-law for a while.
The pump jockeys at the Premier quickly surmised Willie had other things on his mind than rising up the ranks in the service station business. “When cars would pull into the station, it was me and Leonard Sanders filling the tank, checking the oil, and wiping the windows,” said Richard Davis, who also wore the red Premier badge. “Willie was always slow getting out of his chair.” Richard knew where he fit in. “Willie could come and go as he pleased, since he was kin to the owner. He never showed up on time. He used to take a car over to the grease rack, which was in a separate building from the rest of the station, and it would take forever for him to change the oil or wash the car. One day I went over there and on the sides of these Amalie oil boxes were verses that he’d written. Up in the office there’d be scraps of paper with verses written on it. If you said something he thought was lyrical, he’d write it down. He always said he was going to be a songwriter and a country music singer. You knew he was special. You just didn’t know what kind of special.”
Richard and his pal Leonard used Willie’s talents to their advantage. “Willie said he could take any girl’s name and make a song out of it,” Richard said. “I was dating this girl Sharon, she was a pretty good looker, and I told him I was going to bring her up there. He came out and made up the prettiest verse you ever heard. He looked at her and put her characteristics into the line,” flattering her eyes, her hair, and her smile.
Willie’s way with words was a chick magnet as far as Richard was concerned. “He wasn’t a handsome fellow. His hair was kinda curly, his teeth were rotten, and his complexion was terrible. But he could always attract a woman. He talks in poetry. To me, poetry makes you think about the words.”
That sort of response kept Willie on the path. It was an exciting time for country music, which was on the verge of becoming America’s music. Willie was part of the Texas wing of country, an amalgam of Western Swing and honky-tonk music held together by twin fiddles and a beat you could dance to. Sophisticates may have derided hillbilly as low-class white-trash fare, but it was ringing cash registers like no other music. Webb Pierce demonstrated country’s commercial clout by constructing a swimming pool at his Nashville home in the shape of a guitar, built on proceeds of such hits as “Slowly,” “There Stands the Glass,” “More and More,” “Even Tho,” “In the Jailhouse Now,” and, with the Wilburn Brothers, “Sparkling Brown Eyes.”
The Grand Ole Opry in Nashville was the grandest of country’s numerous barn dances, whose reach was amplified by the radio stations that broadcast them. Every part of Texas sported a smaller version of the bigger dances, such as the Opry and Shreveport’s Louisiana Hayride. Central Texas briefly had the Blue Bonnet Barn Dance in Temple, on KCEN-TV. Paris had the Red River Jamboree, which aired throughout East Texas on KFTV-TV. Tyler boasted the Saturday Night Shindig, a little cousin to Houston’s Home Town Jamboree at the City Auditorium, which morphed into the Grand Prize Jamboree, sponsored by the beer company of the same name, and aired on KNUZ-TV and KNUZ radio before switching to KPRC. The Home Town Jamboree’s star was Arlie Duff, whose “Y’all Come” became the show’s trademark. A slew of regional talent, including George Jones, Tex Cherry, Tommy Collins, and Hank Locklin, shared the stage with aspiring amateurs.
Willie found his place at Fort Worth’s barn dance, the Cowtown Hoedown. The Hoedown was not to be confused with its bigger cousins east on Highway 80, the Big D Jamboree in Dallas and the Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport. Still, it provided a steady gig in 1958 and 1959 so he could get his act together as a player as well as a performer. Staged every Saturday night at the Majestic Theatre at 1101 Commerce Street in downtown Fort Worth, in the heart of Fort Worth’s second edition of Hell’s Half Acre, the Cowtown barn dance aired on country station KCUL. The two-and-a-half-hour revue was built around a guest headliner along the lines of Faron Young, Webb Pierce, the Browns, Charlie Walker, Roy Orbison, Ray Price, Ernest Tubb, Bob Luman, or Johnny Horton, and anywhere from six to eight local stars, all supported by the house band.
With no admission charge, the ornate 1,565-seat theater, once the city’s grandest movie house, with opera boxes, marble columns, and terrazzo floors, was usually packed for the Hoedown.
Just being around a lot of similarly inclined entertainers was an education, and Willie paid attention. A few of the Hoedown regulars had enjoyed success. Frankie Miller, one of the cast regulars, had written a number one song for Webb Pierce, “If You Were Me (And I Was You),” in 1955 and was on the verge of scoring a huge Top 5 country hit of his own for Starday Records in 1959 with a song he wrote called “Blackland Farmer.”
Howard Crockett, a veteran of the Louisiana Hayride, was still riding high from writing Johnny Horton’s 1957 breakout hit, “Honky-Tonk Man,” and the d
urable tale “Old Slewfoot.” Tony Douglas, a singer from Martins Mill with a Hank Williams lonesome moan and Louisiana Hayride exposure, was hired as a Hoedown member after receiving five encores the first time he sang there; in 1957 he recorded “Old Blue Monday,” the first of many hits, for the Cowtown Hoedown label.
The Hoedown was hosted by Jack Henderson, the Hoedown’s original producer, who was assisted by Dandy Don Logan from KCUL. The show was broadcast on KCUL from 8 to 10:30 p.m. and rebroadcast the following Saturday night on XEG, a powerful Mexican station within earshot of a good chunk of the Western Hemisphere. After the Hoedown concluded, the star of the night usually left the building and headed out East Belknap to play Rosa’s Western Club. KCUL, whose call letters were luck spelled backwards, wanted to emulate the success the Louisiana Hayride had brought to KWKH, a 50,000-watt station in Shreveport, and the Big D Jamboree brought to KRLD in Dallas. The players’ incentive, besides the $10 pay, was exposure to the up to fifteen hundred fans in the theater and the listeners on the radio, as well as the three-track recording studio in the theater that captured the performances on audiotape.
Willie joined the Hoedown as lead guitarist, playing alongside Doug Winnett on bass, his brother Ernie Winnett on guitar, a steel guitarist named Shady Brown, and guitarist Chuck Jennings, one of Tony Douglas’s Shrimpers.
“Not that he wasn’t a good singer or picker, but Willie wasn’t no standout or nothing at that time,” said Joe Paul Nichols, the Jacksboro teen sensation country singer, who joined the Hoedown cast in 1957. “We knew he was a songwriter and had been a DJ on the radio for a while.”
Willie was popular among the players and learned from his peers. “We liked the way he sang behind the beat,” said Frankie Miller, who used to run around Houston with another distinctive country voice, George Jones, when both were just starting out. “Willie was writing good songs,” Miller said.
The gig was good schooling for Willie’s instrumental skills. Paul Buskirk was always giving him tips and turning him on to all kinds of music until he moved to Houston. Playing the Hoedown was the next best thing, teaching him to think on his feet, improvise when necessary, and play it all—or at least look like he was playing it all.
After Jack Henderson sold the show to Ronnie and Peggy McCoy’s parents, Uncle Hank Craig from KCLE in Cleburne and XEG in Mexico became the Hoedown’s voice as well as the show’s producer. Uncle Hank was like a grandpa to most of the cast, who were years younger than he was, and he took a special shine to Willie, representing him as his manager.
“Uncle Hank was a really sharp guy, a really good friend, and he really liked me,” Willie said. “When I would get in over my head, he would bail me out. He was a buddy.”
Willie’s association with Uncle Hank offered an opportunity to combine his musical skills with his salesmanship, a quality any good Texan was proud to possess. At Uncle Hank’s urging, Willie went downstairs to the basement of the Majestic Theatre to the Jack Henderson Studios. Under Hank’s guidance, Willie made a commercial for the Mexican radio station that Hank was involved with.
With a warm voice brimming with confidence, Willie made the pitch:
“Attention Songwriters and Poets. Here is the big break you have been waiting for—the chance to have your songs on record, recorded by professional musicians. Thousands of dollars are earned each year by songwriters who, not so long ago, were struggling unknowns waiting for their big break—to have their songs recorded and placed before the public. Now there’s no need for you to wait any longer. You can have your songs recorded by professional musicians on your own record to either present to publishers, or just to play in your own home to your friends and relatives, or for your own personal enjoyment. You can actually have your own record library consisting of your own songs—songs you have written yourself. You may have a song worth thousands of dollars to you. Lots of the professional songwriters of today who are financially independent were once amateur songwriters waiting for that one big break. These people learned the hard way that success does not come to you—you have to go out and at least meet it halfway. In order for the right people to hear your songs, you have to take it to them, and there is no better way to present your song than to have it on your own record so they can listen to it played by professional musicians. So if you are a songwriter and you would like to have a professional-sounding record of your own tune, grab a pencil and paper, because I am going to give you the address. Do it now while you are thinking about it, because this could very well be the turning point in your songwriting career. And you are in for a surprise—you’re in for a big surprise—when you learn how little it will cost for you to get your big break as a songwriter, and how little it will cost to have your own song recorded by professional musicians on your own sturdy, durable record that will give you many years of enjoyment. Now here’s what you do: pick out two of your best tunes, or more if you like, but at least two in order to have one tune on each side of your record. Pick out the tunes you want, include the sheet music or lead sheet or a tape recording of your tunes, and send it to Records—that’s R-E-C-O-R-D-S—Records, XEG, Fort Worth, 11, Texas. And now here is the best part—the part that you are going to find hard to believe. For each tune you include, send only ten dollars. That’s all. That will cover everything. That’s just one ten-dollar bill for each tune you send, and this little ten dollars will cover the cost of having your song taped, cut on record by professional musicians, and mailed directly to you, postage paid. And, if you wish, your songs will be listed with your nationally known publishing company at no additional cost. So don’t put it off; do it without delay, and send your songs (at least two—one for each side of your record, and more if you like) to Records, XEG, Fort Worth, 11, Texas, and enclose ten dollars for each tune you send. If you write only words to songs or poems, you may send words or lyrics to your songs or poems and one of our professional songwriters will add the music for the unbelievably low price of ten dollars. There is no longer any need to delay your future in songwriting. That address again is Records—that’s R-E-C-O-R-D-S—Records, XEG, Fort Worth, 11, Texas.”
XEG, the radio station across the Rio Grande that emitted the most powerful radio signal on the continent, sold time to hellfire-breathing preachers, wild disc jockeys like Wolfman Jack and the Howlin’ Rooster, and to promoters like Uncle Hank, who in turn sold gospel records, baby chickens, prayer cloths, autographed pictures of Jesus Christ, and the easy path to songwriting success to millions of listeners across the continent.
From the convincing presentation, a listener might have concluded Willie Nelson had already cracked the code to songwriting success. But he too was still looking for the turning point in his songwriting career. His persuasive powers were more effective than his songwriting talents. Listeners to XEG sent in their $10 bills and their song lyrics and Willie put music to their words “until I got tired of it,” he said. There were better ways to make a living playing music, and he preferred selling his own songs instead of putting music to the words of others.
His worth was validated by Jack Rhodes, a Fort Worth disc jockey and well-known Texas country figure with his own music publishing company. Rhodes licensed the publishing on Willie’s song “Too Young to Settle Down.” Willie gave up half of the credits and potential royalties in the hope that Rhodes would get the song recorded by another singer, which Rhodes knew how to do. He had cowriting credits with Red Hayes on “A Satisfied Mind,” which Porter Wagoner, Jean Shepard, and Red and Betty Foley had just recorded, and would share credits on “Silver Threads and Golden Needles,” and “Woman Love,” which were covered by the likes of Hank Snow, Sonny James, Ferlin Husky, Jim Reeves, Porter Wagoner, and Gene Vincent. Before that, Rhodes led the Western Swing band Jack Rhodes and His Lone Star Buddies (“Mama Loves Papa and Papa Loves the Women”), formerly Jack Rhodes and His Rhythm Boys, which featured Rhodes’s step-brother Leon Payne, whose loose singing style influenced Willie.
Willie wanted to be like Jack Rhodes
and Leon Payne and write songs like he’d always been writing songs, only sell them and have them performed and recorded by others, and perform them himself in front of a crowd. If he had that opportunity, he was confident he’d win them over as long as he wasn’t too drunk or too distracted.
The Cowtown Hoedown and Uncle Hank Craig led to Willie’s first record deal. Several acts on the Hoedown had record contracts with D Records through Uncle Hank, and acting as Willie’s manager, Uncle Hank signed Willie to D Records and to a publishing contract with Glad Music, Pappy Daily’s song publishing firm in 1959. The agreements were little more than mere formalities, because no exchange of money was involved. But Willie finally was a recording artist. In exchange, Willie gave Uncle Hank a piece of his songwriter’s publishing rights to “Man with the Blues” and a piece of his second single, “What a Way to Live,” as well as a taste of “Crying in the Night,” which was later covered by Claude Gray. Selling off some or all of your potential future royalties as a songwriter was expected if you were going to be a recording artist.
Willie cut his first sides in Fort Worth at Manco Studios, a homemade one-track recording facility west of the city on White Settlement Road in River Oaks, next to E. E. Manney’s house, in 1959. Manney had his own label, Bluebonnet Records, which had nowhere near the prestige of D Records. Willie brought along some Western Swing players he knew from Waco—steel guitarist Bobby Penton, Lonnie Campbell on drums, and bassist Johnny “Smitty” Smith—and recruited the Reils Sisters from the Cowtown Hoedown to sing background vocals. The Reils had recorded as the Pittypats behind J. B. Brinkley and as Johnny and the Jills behind rockabilly Ronnie Dee; their little brother Johnny would eventually enjoy success as the Nashville singer John Wesley Ryles. But on this recording, their attempt to replicate the Nashville Sound smothered Willie’s vocal rather than complementing it.
Manco was the same studio where Willie had played guitar on a session earlier that year behind Homer Lee Sewell, another Cowtown Hoedown regular, from Cordell, Oklahoma. Sewell was making a single of two songs he’d written, “Whisper Your Name” b/w (backed with) “She’s Mad at Me.” “I found out he was a good lead man,” Sewell said, “so I asked him if he wanted to play on my record.” Sewell rounded up Willie, Paul East, an upright bass player named Bill Bramlett, and two fiddlers and paid Uncle Hank Craig $200 to get his recording made and released on D Records. An alternate version of “Whisper Your Name,” recorded on the stage of the Majestic with Sewell on fiddle and Willie and Paul East on guitar, supported by Jack Zachary, Hank Craig’s son Eddie Craig on bass, and Bill Bramlett—members of the Hoedown house band—was used as the B side of the single. “I got more airplay on that than I did with ‘She’s Mad at Me,’ ” recalled Sewell. “It had a good beat to it.” Lawton Williams played the record on KCUL, and so did the disc jockeys on KTJS in Sewell’s hometown, Hobart, Oklahoma. But sales were feeble, as Willie’s were.
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