Willie Nelson

by Graeme Thomson

  And so it went on. On 29 January, his old ranch at Fitzhugh Road, now Lana’s home, was sold for $203,840. It was bought by an Arkansan lawyer, John Arens, who represented the American Agriculture Movement, who worked closely with Farm Aid. Arens went straight to Nelson with the news. ‘I really don’t know what to say,’ Nelson said at the time. ‘It’s just another indication of how important friends are.’

  Mickey Raphael: We just felt very defensive of him. It was interesting to see the people who were there buying the stuff back. The ones who bought for a nickel on the dollar and gave it to Willie, or the ones who took it like scavengers. It was kind of interesting to see.

  Of course, it had been planned well in advance. ‘I have friends who have offered to buy property for me and save it until I can afford to get it back from them,’ Nelson said in 1991. ‘I was assured of all that months ago.’4 Local musicians would buy up his amps and guitars and put them in storage, ready for him to collect any time he wanted. It was an astonishing vindication of the values of loyalty and friendship which he held so dear, and a fitting response from the community he had treated so well over the years. He was not, however, entirely immune to all the pain that events were causing. He was angry at the people who had got him into this mess and dismayed at where it had all lead. He was angry at himself as well, for following such dubious advice when all his instincts – his most trusted radar – had told him not to. It wasn’t easy to watch his life being laid out on a table and sold to the highest bidder.

  Connie Nelson: Willie was furious to some extent, but I think it hurt him too. The fact that the IRS came in and auctioned off his stuff, you know, that physically hurt him. Stuff that he’d saved for years, things that people had given him, they just took it all. It hurt more than it made him mad. In a way it’s just stuff, but it still hurts. Things that people have given you over the years that you care about, sentimental stuff, that’s the part that hurts. Whereas a car is just a car.

  By April the dust was starting to settle and he cut a deal with the IRS. They had by now realised that Nelson was not living a decadent lifestyle and that there was no way they were going to recoup $16.7m from his possessions. They thought he might as well start earning some money. The arrangement meant he could continue to tour and keep some of the income for his own living expenses, but the IRS would require a full, month-by-month account of how all earnings were being spent. It effectively meant that the free-for-all of the old days was over – there was no room for extravagant gestures or a coterie of hangers-on. However, there was still room for a little bending of the rules, a bit of the old outlaw spirit. Soon after the IRS had struck Nelson and the band played the Night Life club in Houston, which he part-owned.

  David Zettner: [They] told everybody in the band: ‘Make sure if anybody asks, tell them you’re not being paid. This is just for fun.’ So Poodie got all the money and put it in a paper bag for Willie and kept it on him, and three days later he saw Willie on the golf course and just threw it in the back of his [golf] cart: $100,000. He just ‘found’ it there. In other words, it had been filtered so nobody could say, ‘Oh, Willie owes on this.’ Everybody was helping him out. It was incredible.

  His other master plan, which he had negotiated with the IRS, was to release an album to help pay off his debt. Rather like Marvin Gaye’s There, My Dear, which had formed part of the divorce settlement to his wife, Who’ll Buy My Memories?: The IRS Tapes was designed to help wipe the slate clean by allowing him to make money doing what he did best.

  He had negotiated access to the more than 300 cardboard boxes of master tapes that the IRS had seized from his studio, and from them he pieced together a 25-song album consisting primarily of classic old songs played on just an acoustic guitar, recorded at intervals through the years. The plan was to sell the album for $19.95 using television adverts and an 1–800 number – it wouldn’t initially be available in the shops. Nelson’s cut of the action was $6 per album. ‘Three million copies would give me $18m and I’d have a million to get drunk with,’ he said, and he wasn’t quite joking.

  Willie Nelson: I think if we give it enough publicity there’s no limit to what we could sell. Within four or five months, the whole debt could be wiped out. We’d take a negative thing and turn it into a positive thing for everybody.5

  The IRS Tapes was released on 3 June and marked the apex of the dreamy philosophy that governed Nelson’s life: namely that he could – as Johnny Bush puts it – ‘turn horseshit into lemonade’. It was a hopelessly optimistic venture from the off, but he nonetheless seriously seemed to think it would bail him out, and nobody within his entourage appeared to contradict him with a straight dose of common sense. He explained how Stardust had gone multi-platinum and yet initially nobody had rated it at all, but these were very different times and he had as much chance of selling three million albums as he had of visiting the moon. In any case, only $3 from his $6 cut was going towards his IRS debt, which meant he would in reality have to sell six million records to break even. In the event The IRS Tapes sold around 200,000 copies, and was not blessed with good luck. Nelson appeared on ABC’s Prime Time TV show with the wrong phone number emblazoned on his shirt; then the Television Group, the company selling the album through telephone orders, went bankrupt. Sales had effectively ground to a halt by January 1992.

  The irony of it all was that it was his best album in a long time, a wonderfully raw and heartfelt reading of some of his most beautiful and downbeat songs from the early and middle parts of his career. Alongside solo versions of ‘The Sound In Your Mind’ and ‘Permanently Lonely’ that knocked spots off the originals, there was a lovely song called ‘If You Could Only See’ which had never been released. Many wondered why these recordings had languished in the vaults for so long when he had lately been churning out mediocre material year in and year out. It is one aspect of Nelson’s work that is hard to understand, but in reality it was simply an extension of his live-in-the-moment philosophy. He created in the moment as well, and when the moment had passed he didn’t linger. It was often down to mere circumstance and fate what actually got released into the public domain. Later, The IRS Tapes was released with a companion album, The Hungry Years, recorded in Bogalusa, Louisiana in 1976. It was an equally strong set, and there are hundreds of other recordings still lying around in the Nelson vaults. He has had instant access to his own studio for the past 25 years and is constantly cutting material, either alone or with his visitors, and then filing it away. He recently admitted that he was planning to spend some time finding out exactly what was in there.

  Merle Haggard: He’s got about forty songs down there at his place that we’ve done together that nobody’s ever heard. We just came out of his golf course down there one day and we just kind of fell in to an unplanned situation. There’s some really neat stuff. We did [Jim Reeves’s] ‘Am I Losing You?’, we did a Bob Dylan tune, ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’.

  In February 1992 Nelson negotiated a final compromise with the IRS. He owed them a total of $9.6m in unpaid taxes, interest and penalties, of which $3.6m had already been paid – raised through his touring, the album, the auctions and the sale of his properties in Colorado and Yakima. He now had to pay a further $2.4m within three years (with $1m being paid within ninety days) and a final $3m within five years. In the meantime the IRS would receive 40 per cent of The IRS Tapes sales and a significant slice of any monies received in the lawsuit against Price-Waterhouse, which was still rumbling through the courts. In the end, it was this lawsuit that bailed him out.

  All along, Nelson had alleged that the firm’s management and accountants had urged him to defer paying his taxes and had recommended the investment into First Western Government Securities, despite the fact that the company were aware that the scheme was flawed and fraudulent and attracting interest from the IRS. Nelson also alleged that he was misadvised over the cattle feed investments. In January 1994 Price-Waterhouse filed a summary judgment claiming, ‘The evidence in
this case demonstrates without question that Price-Waterhouse acted in good faith throughout its relationship with plaintiffs. Price-Waterhouse cannot be liable for fraud or racketeering simply because plaintiffs did not obtain the tax benefits they desired.’ Nelson’s lawyers filed a detailed, 51-page opposition in April, and in August the dispute finally settled in their favour. The exact terms of the agreement remain confidential, but in essence Price-Waterhouse settled his outstanding tax bill with the IRS. He was even.

  Connie Nelson: As it turned out, it was illegal for the guy at Price-Waterhouse to bring the deal to Willie. If somebody else had said something to Willie about it and then Willie had gone to Price-Waterhouse and they had said, ‘Sure, go ahead,’ it wouldn’t have been illegal, but this guy worked for them and brought it to Willie and that was illegal. Someone that worked in Price-Waterhouse had proof that this guy had done this eight or ten other times. She snuck the paperwork out and got it to Willie’s attorneys, so they had proof. That’s when Price-Waterhouse settled and everything got paid. They paid everything. The only deal was we couldn’t go to the press and say what happened.

  Nelson could now buy back his country club and studio at Pedernales and his ranch at Fitzhugh Road from his friends. He had pulled it off. Of course, there were some things that had been lost forever in the fire sale, but in the main it was a remarkable feat of preservation. Larry Trader was still manning the golf club; Bob Wishoff was still hatching gonzo schemes in the condos; David Zettner was living up in a cabin on the ranch, producing bands and tending his artwork; many of the road crew were still living in the grounds of the country club; Bobbie was still on the sixth fairway; Lana was back at Fitzhugh Road; the bus was still on the ranch, awaiting use. If you looked around it was hard to tell that the IRS had ever been there at all, but nobody would ever forget it.

  He had endured a bruising and potentially humiliating process with humour and grace, had surfed the media onslaught and the frequent limp jokes and cracks about him being a ‘tax dodger’ with little complaint. It had never really been a story of greed, but instead a meandering narrative featuring many characters, encompassing loyalty, naivety, abused trust, recklessness, black humour, hopeless optimism and canny tactical moves. Above all it was a tale of determination, the determination that nobody could ever force him to change the way he lived. And against all the odds, he had won.

  Just as he was dusting himself down from the worst of his early skirmishes with the IRS, another long-running source of heartache finally played out to its conclusion, this time with truly tragic consequences. His son Billy committed suicide on Christmas Day 1991 at his home in the suburbs of Nashville, hanging himself with a cord. He was aged only 33.

  Billy had always been a difficult man. He had problems, many of which unquestionably related to the haphazard manner in which he was raised. Martha had died in 1989, but she had only ever really been a mother in name. Shirley had disappeared from view at a vulnerable age and Connie was never embraced as a surrogate. Billy had never settled comfortably into either his skin or his life. His father had never been around enough, although Nelson involved him in his business, as he did all his children: Billy had a role in the ‘Pancho And Lefty’ video in 1983, doubling for Merle Haggard, and they also recorded an album of gospel songs together the same year, finally released posthumously in 1994 as Peace In The Valley.

  But Billy was not a satisfied soul. His drinking had long been a problem. Observers at Pedernales recall the day he drove his car through the window of the local store in Briarcliff to get some alcohol – Nelson had to go down and smooth things over – and in May 1990 he was found guilty of drink driving in Nashville and sentenced to 20 days in jail, a $1,000 fine, a 1-year ban and 160-hours community service. At that point Connie attempted an intervention.

  Connie Nelson: I had Billy talk to this doctor up in Palm Beach who was a drug rehab doctor, and helped Thomas ‘Hollywood’ Henderson get sober. Billy came with me to meet with him, and he talked with him and just had suggestions. I told Billy he could come and stay with me – he wouldn’t do it – but the main thing was Billy came to see this guy with me. I did that and it didn’t work. I always feel like I wish I’d have just handcuffed myself to him. I mean, I tried a lot of things and Willie tried. Willie did as much as he could, but I feel like he still feels guilt. I still feel guilt, so I know he does.

  Billy killed himself on Christmas Day, which also happened to be Lukas’s third birthday. Some of Nelson’s friends believe that his marriage to Annie three months earlier and the arrival of two more sons into the family had a detrimental effect on Billy, who was for so long the sole male heir. Others mutter about Nelson’s neglectful parenting skills and lack of attentiveness to his children. But who in life can accurately identify the source or measure the quantity of every little hurt? What can be said is that the real problem with Nelson’s stoned, egalitarian principles, his insistence on treating all people with equal respect and courtesy, was that it neglected the fact that the individuals within his family circle deserved to be regarded as special – to be allowed to feel more important than others.

  It’s a little ironic that his fans, the people who view Nelson from afar, feel that they know him while those with an up-close view have constantly battled to attract his attention and his interest. His wives suffered because of that, but his children were the worst affected. When he wrote ‘It’s Not Supposed To Be That Way’ for his daughter Susie in 1973, he later confessed that ‘it occurred to me that it was easier to sing it than say it’.6 It’s a telling remark. Sometimes they needed to hear him say it. He certainly shouldn’t be held responsible for all their brushes with misfortune, all the abusive marriages, divorces, alcohol and drug abuse, unhappiness and suicide, but his absences and laid-back devotion to fate certainly couldn’t have helped. He was simply not a dedicated father.

  Johnny Bush: He doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t deny it. Willie’s the same to everybody. When the crowds gathered around the bus when it pulls up, I’ve seen one of his children in particular hanging out in the crowd waiting for Willie to come out, when someone should have said, ‘Come on in.’ I don’t think he means to be that way, but there’s so many, many people. Some people blame him for Billy’s suicide, but I don’t. Billy just had some problems and I know that grieved Willie a lot, it hurt him terribly, but I don’t believe it was because he was pushing Billy out.

  All his family had grown up with the knowledge that they had to play second fiddle to his pursuit of a life that worked for him. Nelson was aware that it hurt but he wasn’t able to change his lifestyle to make it better. He loved them all and he had always loved knowing that he had a home and a family waiting, just as long as he didn’t have to actually be there too often. ‘I refuse,’ he later said, ‘to stay where I’m not happy.’7 He provided materially for his children, but even when he was off the road during their childhoods he was rarely around to provide solid emotional support.

  Willie Nelson: I always feel I need a home base. There’s something in me that makes me want to know that wherever I am, and whatever I’m doing, I can always go home to someone, someplace. Truthfully, it’s not so much that I enjoy being there.8

  Nelson had visited Billy in Nashville not long before he died. According to one newspaper report his son had asked for some money which Nelson, embroiled in his tax problems, was unable to give him. He was buried back in his home state of Texas and one of the pall bearers was Paul English, one of the few people around Nelson who understood what he was experiencing, having lost his own wife to suicide in 1973. English had since re-married but had never forgotten the impact of Carlene’s death. He tried to speak honestly.

  Paul English: I told him, ‘I know what you’re going through. I can’t say anything, no one else can say anything that will help. I know how it feels.’ It’s a very big catastrophe. There’s no closure. It’s still going on. My wife has been dead since 3 January 1973 and I think about her a lot.

  Nelson re
treated, tried to make sense of it all. His belief in reincarnation helped, as did his espousal of something he called ‘instant reincarnation’, which forwarded the idea that body and soul were in constant regeneration; that effectively you were a different person now than you had been one minute or even one second earlier. He almost never talks about Billy, but on one rare occasion he commented: ‘Well, you have all these guilts and regrets, but you can run yourself crazy. You’re not the same person now you were then, so why take responsibility for something you didn’t do?’9 It sounded suspiciously like an excuse, and one he didn’t even swallow himself.

  Combined with the stress of the IRS inquiry, it is a wonder that the events didn’t kill him or send him into a self-destructive tailspin. Even Bobbie, his closest and most constant support, feared for him. Not even his best friends know how he dealt with it; he guarded his emotions and his responses well. Perhaps what Kris Kristofferson once said is true: ‘Willie wears the world as a loose garment.’ When in doubt, he did what he always did: he kept working.

  He toured the States with the Highwaymen in February, and joined them in Europe for the first time in April. In between he focused on the Farm Aid concert that had been organised at the Texas Stadium in Irving on 14 March. He brushed aside any comparisons between the fate of the farmers and his own financial situation.

  Willie Nelson: I have the ability to make a living. I still have my talents and a band and a promoter and a beer joint somewhere to play my music in. These guys have lost their farms and are now part of the unemployed. They need help more than me.10

  But he did have to make some difficult choices in recognition of his financial plight. He signed a deal with the fast food chain Taco Bell, singing a somewhat parodic song on a television commercial; the chain also sold discounted cassettes of his albums with certain purchases. Jose Cuervo Tequila signed up for a two-year sponsorship of his tours, while copies of his forthcoming album would come with a mail offer for a free pair of Willie Nelson signature shot glasses.