Willie sometimes wondered whether he was moving forward or just running in place. One night, Oliver English, Willie’s guitar player from back on KCNC, ran into him on Exchange Street after he’d played a gig at Pappa Gray’s with two Mexicans named Momolito and Moose. Willie was down. “They don’t understand my music here,” he complained to Oliver.
But his old friend Johnny Bush noticed a change. Billy Walker had told Johnny that Willie was working the Terrace Club in Waco again, so Johnny and his wife drove from San Antonio to hear him. “I heard him sing a couple songs and immediately recognized I was hearing something different,” Johnny said. “He didn’t sound like the singer I had known.” He’d dropped the Lefty Frizzell pretensions and embraced Leon Payne’s freewheeling vocal style. “It was like the first time I heard George Jones sing,” Johnny said. He was knocked out.
Houston, 1959
WITH MARTHA and the kids staying at her mother’s in Waco, Willie decided Houston, the biggest city in Texas (pop. 932,680), was worth the 19.9 cents a gallon expense to check out the scene he’d sampled with Johnny Bush a few years earlier.
Wide open, the physical layout of “America’s Industrial Frontier” and “World’s Greatest Petro-Chemical Center” was perched at the edge of Galveston Bay, fifty miles from the Gulf of Mexico. Houston’s hot, humid, buggy, and muggy climate was one ingredient in a strange gumbo that also included poverty, cheap guns, stoved-up passion, and redneck sensibilities fermented in alcohol; when cooked together, they fostered Houston’s reputation as Murder City, USA.
Houston was Texas, all right, but in many respects, more Southern than Fort Worth, Abbott, San Antonio, or Waco, even. It was the blackest city in Texas, with African Americans comprising more than a quarter of the population with almost as many Mexicans as San Antonio. Since the end of World War II, Houston had become a magnet for thousands of Cajuns and Creoles from southwest Louisiana and southeastern Texas as well.
Big Houston was big fun, and big business. The galaxy of homegrown country stars included Floyd Tillman, George Jones, Benny Barnes, Smilin’ Jerry Jericho, Claude Gray, Sonny Burns, James O’Gwynn, Link Davis, Ted Daffan, Leon Payne, Leon Pappy Selph, and Eddie Noack. Two significant country music record companies were based in Houston—Starday Records, formed by Pappy Daily and Jack Starnes, which launched the career of George Jones, and Daily’s D Records, created in the wake of Starday’s move to Nashville. While dance halls, honky-tonks, and icehouses were the scene’s underpinnings, its showcases were Houston’s recording studios, especially Bill Quinn’s Gold Star Studio in southeast Houston.
Harry Choates recorded his Cajun classic, “Jole Blon,” at Gold Star. George Jones cut a string of early hits there, beginning with “Why, Baby, Why,” and the Big Bopper did his rock and roll chart topper “Chantilly Lace” at Gold Star. The bluesman Lightnin’ Hopkins recorded most of his early material with Quinn, and conductor Leopold Stokowski was bringing in the Houston Symphony Orchestra to take advantage of the studio’s superior acoustics.
“Quinn was always trying to get you a good sound,” said Frankie Miller, who cut his biggest hit, “Blackland Farmer,” at Gold Star Studio. “He wanted to get it right.”
So did Willie Nelson, which is why he went to Houston.
In the spring of 1959, he showed up one afternoon at 11410 Hempstead Highway on the northwest fringe of Houston to check out the Esquire Ballroom, the spacious dance hall owned by Raymond Proske, where the house band led by Larry Butler was rehearsing new material. A waitress informed Larry that a man wanted to talk to him. After rehearsal Larry sat down at a table and drank a beer with the out-of-town musician who wanted to play some songs for Larry. Larry was game. Willie played him four compositions—“Mr. Record Man,” “Crazy,” “Night Life,” and “Funny How Time Slips Away.”
Those are good songs, Larry told him.
“Ten bucks apiece,” Willie said. Larry could have the songs, publishing and everything, for $10 each. He needed the money. Larry leaned across the table. “Don’t do that,” he said. “They’re worth more than ten bucks. If you need money, I’ll loan it to you. You can pay me back by joining my band and working at the club here.”
Larry fronted Willie $50, and Willie became one of Larry Butler’s Sunset Playboys, the house band at the Esquire. Larry went one step further. Musicians worked for union scale in Houston. As bandleader, Larry made $25 a night and the other musicians made $15. When owner Raymond Proske said he couldn’t afford Willie, Larry offered to add him to the band by splitting his leader’s pay with him, as long as he showed up and did his part.
Larry Butler gave Willie hope, letting him showcase his own songs during the band’s sets and closing out the evening with Willie’s original “The Party’s Over.” Frankie Miller, who’d played with Willie at the Cowtown Hoedown, was surprised to run into him at the Esquire, “playing guitar, paying his dues,” when Miller passed through, promoting his single. In addition to working with Larry, Willie was playing gigs with Denny Burke, with Curley Fox and Texas Ruby, the husband-and-wife fiddling-singing duo who brought country music to Houston television, and with anyone who needed a guitarist who could sing and write songs.
The gig at the Esquire and other pickup work convinced Willie that Houston was for him. With Larry Butler’s help, he moved Martha, Lana, young Susie, and baby Billy into a tiny rent house in the shadows of Houston’s oil and chemical refineries clustered around the Houston Ship Channel in Pasadena. He scored a shift at KRCT 650 AM in Pasadena, the Houston-area country music radio station owned by Leroy Gloger; the job didn’t pay much, but he used the airtime to plug upcoming gigs.
Instead of playing for scale as a sideman, which was $12 to $15 a night, he was able to get up to $25 from front men such as Smilin’ Jerry Jericho, for whom Johnny Bush was playing, in exchange for free mentions on the radio. Guitarist Lucky Carlisle frequently called on Willie to play rhythm for him, but he didn’t think Willie’s media status justified a higher salary.
When Lucky called, Willie asked, “What’s the pay?”
“The usual, scale.”
“I don’t like to get out much these days for less than twenty-five,” Willie replied, trying to up the ante.
“I bet you stay home a lot,” Lucky said.
“Come to think of it, you’re right,” Willie said, wrapping up the negotiation. “I’ll be there.”
Paul Buskirk, Willie’s mentor and friend, offered a third job to Willie, which would fit in with his plan to make a living writing, singing, and playing music. Paul had moved from Dallas to Houston to open the Buskirk Music Studios at 108 East Bird in Pasadena while picking up recording session work on the side whenever he could. He thought Willie would make a good guitar teacher. Willie hesitated. He’d taught Sunday school, but he’d never taught music. “C’mon, brother,” Paul Buskirk cajoled, pooh-poohing Willie’s complaint. “Teaching music isn’t hard. Just buy a beginner’s book and teach what you learn from that.” Willie did just that, reading a lesson a night from the Mel Bay book of beginning guitar and the next day imparting what he had learned. “It’s really where Willie learned to play guitar,” said Freddy Powers, Paul’s friend. Between Paul’s teachings and Willie’s book learning, he figured out chords and styling that would have otherwise gone unappreciated.
Willie didn’t know it, but his own songwriting was improving too. Houston was an inspirational setting for some of his best songs. The struggle to provide for Martha and three kids was more of a challenge than ever, but it offered plenty of material for sad songs. The long, lonely commutes on the Hempstead Highway, the Gulf Freeway, and Eastex Freeway provided close to an hour’s worth of quality time to think and create every night. If a lyric came to him, he wouldn’t necessarily write it down until he’d reached his destination. “If I forgot the words,” he would later say, “they weren’t very memorable in the first place.”
The twinkling lights and pungent odors of oil and chemical refineries, paper mills, and factorie
s turned private thoughts into poetry as he reviewed the day, the night, the people he encountered, the family he was trying to support, his wife, the other women who were attracted to him, the slices of life that crossed his mind. The songs flowed like never before. “Night Life,” “Crazy,” “Mr. Record Man,” “I Gotta Get Drunk.”
He showed his stuff to his sister on a visit to Fort Worth. “That’s the first time I remember ever seeing a tape recorder,” Bobbie said. “He had this little tape recorder. On his way up, he had written three songs. He was so excited. One of them was ‘In God’s Eyes,’ one was ‘It’s Not for Me to Understand,’ and one was ‘Family Bible,’ ” the song he’d played for Mae Axton two years before.
His musicianship continued to improve. Paul Buskirk was turning him on to more Django Reinhardt. They discussed singing and vocal styles, agreeing Floyd Tillman was as much of a crooner as Frank Sinatra was. And when Willie found himself behind on bills, Paul bought some of his songs.
Selling songs was nothing new to Willie. Despite his three jobs, he was so broke, he didn’t have a pot to piss in. Finding someone willing to pay for something that he made up was validation in his eyes. If one he sold ever became a hit and made the buyer all the money, there were more where that came from. “I knew my songs were good,” Willie said.
Buskirk paid $100 for the rights to “Night Life” and $50 for “Family Bible.” Willie had been enjoying a beer and barbecue with him in a Pasadena bar when he sang “Family Bible” and told him, “This is one you’ll like. I’ll sell it to you.” Selling a song was more honorable than borrowing money, in his mind.
Buskirk led to a second buyer. Claude Gray was a spindly six foot five honky-tonk singer from Henderson, in East Texas, who worked as a DJ in nearby Kilgore before moving to Houston to sell Plymouths and Dodges for a living after he’d gotten out of the navy. The same year Willie came to Houston, Claude quit selling cars when he scored another disc jockey job at a radio station in Meridian, Mississippi.
Claude returned to Houston, though, for several recording sessions at Bill Quinn’s studio, paid for by D Records and Pappy Daily. Paul Buskirk put together a studio band for Claude and between sessions sent several songs for Claude to consider covering. They were “Night Life,” “The Party’s Over,” and “Family Bible.” Claude knew Willie from the Esquire Ballroom up north of Houston and followed Buskirk’s suggestions by recording them all.
D Records issued 45 rpm singles of Claude Gray singing “My Party’s Over,” slightly changing the song title, and “Family Bible.” Claude Gray paid $100 for a piece of “Family Bible” and another $100 for the musicians and studio time to cut that tune as well as “Night Life,” “The Party’s Over,” and “Leave Alone.” In exchange for the session work, Gray shared ownership of “Family Bible” with Paul Buskirk, who backed up Gray on the recordings, and Walt Breeland, a friend of Paul’s who was a business agent for the Drivers and Helpers Union and an aspiring singer with a Jim Reeves voice, who was looking for songs. Claude signed a napkin, promising to buy “Night Life” if his version was released as a single. “Willie wanted it released,” Claude said. “He would give me half the writer’s [royalties]. But Pappy Daily didn’t think it was country enough.”
Pappy Daily’s D Records was one of the main reasons Willie had come to Houston. He was signed to the label, and if he was closer to the home office, maybe he would get more attention from D Records and Glad Music, the record label and publishing company owned by Pappy Daily.
D Records was the big dog of country music in Houston, a critical piece of the vertically integrated country-music empire Pappy was trying to build out of his H. W. Daily one-stop record wholesaler. With all the elements working, he could take what he learned with his previous label, Starday, and make his new start-up label competitive with any Nashville record label short of Decca and RCA.
Willie’s first single for D Records, the surprisingly upbeat “Man with the Blues,” done honky-tonk style, b/w “The Storm Has Just Begun,” one of the first songs he’d ever written, were released on both D Records and Betty Records in 1959 after the sides were recorded in Fort Worth.
In Houston, Willie managed to do two more sessions for D Records at Bill Quinn’s Gold Star. “What a Way to Live” and “Misery Mansion” were recorded on March 11, 1960, with the backing of Paul Buskirk on guitar, Ozzie Middleton on pedal steel, Dean Reynolds on bass, Al Hagy on drums, and Clyde Brewer and Darold Raley on fiddles. Both songs were head and shoulders above his D sessions in Fort Worth, a reflection of the musicianship behind him, the recording facility, and Willie’s developing talents. He sang the vocal of “What a Way to Live” like a spirited blues, in contrast with the melodramatic sound of the backing band, and tackled “Misery Mansion” like a traditional country beer-rhymes-with-tear weeper. They were fine, though unspectacular, tunes.
A few weeks later, Willie and Paul Buskirk, Al Hagy, and Dean Reynolds returned to Gold Star, along with pianist Bob Whitford, steel guitarist Herb Remington, and vibraphonist-saxophonist Dick Shannon, to do two more originals. Something had happened between the two sessions.
“Rainy Day Blues” was a classic Texas shuffle, a popular dance rhythm that had been played with equal exuberance by white country players and black rhythm and blues artists since the 1930s. The music, projected over sad honky-tonk lyrics, showed Willie had chops as a guitarist.
“Night Life” was from another realm. Mature, deep, and thoughtful, the slow, yearning blues had been put together in his head during long drives across Houston. At Gold Star, he was surrounded by musicians who could articulate his musical thoughts. He sang the words with confident phrasing that had never been heard on any previous recording he’d done. Paul Buskirk’s and Willie’s guitar leads were straight out of the T-Bone Walker playbook, while Dick Shannon’s bluesy saxophone was pure Texas tenor, with his vibe work adding subtle jazz atmospherics. If not for Herb Remington’s low-note hokum on his steel guitar and his Hawaiian flourishes, the song could have passed for race music. No matter what style the music was or how personally Willie sang it, the lyrics were a commentary just about anyone could relate to:
When the evenin’ sun goes down
You will find me hangin’ ’round
Oh, the night life, it ain’t no good life
But it’s my life . . .
Life is just another scene
In this old world of broken dreams
Oh, the night life, it ain’t no good life
But it’s my life.
“It was a level above what we had been doing,” Willie said of the session.
Pappy Daily hated the song. He refused to release the song as the A-side of a single because it was neither country nor commercial as far as he was concerned. If Willie wanted to write blues, he should be doing it for Don Robey over at Duke-Peacock Records, the nigger music company down on Erastus Street in the bloody Fifth Ward of Houston.
Willie thought Pappy was full of shit. “Night Life” was a great song and he knew it. So did Paul Buskirk. He knew a groove when he heard one, and he knew Willie was about to blow his top out of frustration. If Pappy wouldn’t release it, Willie would, and did, with Paul’s help. “Nite Life” was released on a small Houston label, Rx (“Prescription for Happy Times”), under the name of Paul Buskirk and His Little Men featuring Hugh Nelson. The single was mastered at Bill Holford’s ACA Studios. A few copies were pressed and passed around as demos in the hope that someone would hear it. But only a handful of disc jockeys, including Uncle Hank Craig on XEG, played the single.
If “Night Life” wasn’t his ticket to recognition, selling “Family Bible” to Claude Gray sure helped. Claude’s single, also on D Records, began climbing up the charts in the early weeks of 1960, eventually nudging into the Top 10, topping out at number 7 on the national country singles chart compiled by Billboard magazine. Whatever royalties he’d lost by signing his rights away were balanced out by the word getting around that this Willie Nelson fella knew
how to write songs. “When it went into the Top Ten, I thought, goddamn. I’d sold it for fifty dollars,” Willie said. But he didn’t regret it. “I just thought I would write more. I would have just as soon got fifty here, a hundred there, because it was cash in hand, and I knew plenty of guys who recorded their songs and still didn’t make a quarter.”
HE might have written a hit single, but he didn’t have much to show for it. His gig on the radio had ended when he was fired for showing up late one too many times after way too many nights out late, so he sought out Charlie Brown, the country singer from back in West whose daughter Faye Dell had once been the light of his life. Charlie had a nightly gig at a club on Canal Street in a rough part of Houston down by the port. “I’m broke,” Willie said when he found Charlie. “I’ve got my family with me, I need some work.”
“Tell you what I’m going to do,” Charlie said. “I’ll give you some money. You get you something to eat, and come back and sit in, you can make a few dollars.”
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