Willie Nelson

by Graeme Thomson

  Spirit is the sound of Nelson falling and trying to get back up. It is a much more personal album than Red Headed Stranger and a far greater triumph in songwriting terms. There is no narrative, no concept, no hiding behind cowboy personas or bravado. The closest it comes to an outlaw declaration is on ‘We Don’t Run’, a matter-of-fact, Woody Guthrie-ish strum of defiance: ‘We don’t run/ We don’t compromise/ We don’t quit/ We never do,’ he sings, and he means it. A further seductive strand of the record is the beauty and clarity of the musical performances, especially Nelson’s sweet, sinewy, utterly unique guitar playing, which has never been better captured.

  In concert his guitar is often too loud in the mix, the muddy sound accentuating only the booming lower notes, but here he reels off a master-class which encompasses everything from ominous Spanish rumbles and almost classical figures to folk strums and tight blues. In all, Spirit is up there with the finest forty minutes of his career.

  Willie Nelson: Spirit is my favourite. It’s my over-all, all-time favourite, because it is so sparse. It was [a personal album]. It covered a long period of time and it was good to do it and simplify it, with just a few instruments. It made it less-is-more.11

  Spirit came out in June 1996, the first country album Island had ever released. It was not marketed well. Chris Blackwell had left the company soon after Nelson signed, which had a negative impact on the record. Some people found it difficult to locate in record stores, while radio play proved almost impossible, to the extent that Nelson personally delivered it to a small station in Arkansas in order to get it on air. He was facing an uphill battle commercially. The ear of the world had turned away again following his wayward dalliances pace-Across The Borderline, and there was nothing on the new album that could really be called a single. Radio had changed to such an extent that none of the country legends were getting any airplay. It was all tied up in demographics, record company politics and money. You could turn the dial for a long time before you heard George Jones or Hank Williams on the airwaves. Or Willie Nelson.

  Coincidentally, 1996 marked the twentieth anniversary of Wanted! The Outlaws, which had sold over two million copies in the intervening years. He and Waylon cut a new song with Steve Earle called ‘Nowhere Road’ for a CD reissue of the album on RCA. The irony was obvious for all to see. He was once again at odds with the establishment who cared little that he was making some of the best music of his life. It was nothing new – he well remembered the times when he couldn’t get played on the radio. Spirit didn’t get anywhere near the pop charts and reached only No. 21 on the country charts. He wasn’t really bitter, just a little bemused and amused.

  Willie Nelson: These days it’s ridiculous who-all can’t get played. [I] knew that radio-wise I was getting into a little bit of trouble when I heard some guy say, ‘Boy, I wish they’d play some of those old guys again like George Strait and Randy Travis!’12

  He really believed in Spirit and went the extra mile for the record. He gave a lot of interviews and even changed his well-worn live set-up to include a suite of songs from the album. On 10 July 1996 he played almost the entire album without Bee Spears or Paul English – just piano, guitar and harmonica – during a three-hour show at New York’s Supper Club, to great acclaim. He dropped some of his reggae tunes into the live show – most often Jimmy Cliff’s ‘The Harder They Come’ and ‘Sittin’ In Limbo’ – and even strapped on an electric guitar for a medley of blues tunes like ‘Texas Flood’ and ‘Milk Cow Blues’.

  The leaps in energy levels in both band, audience and star were tangible on the new material, and though it did not herald the dawn of a new era on the stage, he performed in the quartet format on and off for the next couple of years, a seismic reconfiguration within the limited confines of the Nelson universe. A mammoth concert at London’s Barbican in 1998, part of the Inventing America series, was illustrative: he would cling to his tried and tested set for the first ninety minutes before changing tack and throwing some curveballs, including songs from Spirit, a solo performance of ‘A Song For You’, and new songs such as ‘Everywhere I Go’ and ‘Somebody Pick Up My Pieces’, the latter a classic old country weepie, both of which would end up on his next record. In Ohio he previewed a song called ‘A Whore With A Heart of Gold’, written for a film called Outlaw Justice he had just finished making in Almeria, Spain with Kristofferson and Travis Tritt.

  Spirit had stuck with him. He did not just cut it and lay it aside, as he did so many other of his records. Instead, he proposed to build on it, and planned a new album which would continue its themes of spirituality and doubt and musical minimalism, though in the end it didn’t quite come out that way. He had heard – and heard good things about – Daniel Lanois, a Canadian musician and producer who had worked with everyone from Dylan and Emmylou Harris to Peter Gabriel and U2. Nelson had cut a song with U2 in Dublin called ‘Slow Dancing’ in 1997, and he was aware that Lanois was working on Bob Dylan’s latest record and had recently made Emmylou Harris’s acclaimed Wrecking Ball.

  Daniel Lanois: There was a phone call out of the blue from Mark Rothbaum. Mark had been aware of my work and brought it to Willie’s attention. We met and got along great and decided to make a record.

  Nelson had four new songs, which had originally sounded a lot like the ones he had written for Spirit. ‘Everywhere I Go’, ‘I Love You All Over The World’, ‘Somebody Pick Up My Pieces’ and the instrumental ‘Annie’ were all promising, and he invited Lanois to rummage around in his back catalogue to select some more songs to make up an entire album. Lanois had just completed work on Dylan’s tour-de-force Time Out Of Mind, released in September 1997, which was heavily rhythmic, thick with percussion and atmosphere, and he saw this album almost as a ‘continuation, a cousin’ to the Dylan record: as such, old Nelson songs like ‘Three Days’ and ‘I Never Cared For You’ appealed to him. He envisaged a much tougher rhythmic basis to the songs than Nelson had initially imagined, with the drums sparring off Nelson’s Tex-Mex guitar. Lanois had a small repertory of musicians and his set-up included a drum kit which could accommodate two drummers playing simultaneously side by side. In the end the album took on a sound of its own, influenced by the material, Nelson’s guitar style and, not least, the evocative location.

  Daniel Lanois: He was fascinated with Django Reinhardt and it put a bit of a Spanish twist to the record. I wanted to play up the rhythmic side of things. My studio at the time was in an old Mexican theatre called El Teatro, so it all sort of came into focus.

  Lanois’ studio was an old porn theatre in Oxnard, southern California, which gave the album its name: Teatro. He had removed the seats from the middle of the theatre and built a level stage in the middle, facing the screen. On this stage he put all the recording equipment, amps, instruments and the musicians. Guitars were everywhere, including one Dylan had left behind. When the musicians played there were no headphones, no separation, everything was designed to be cut live with as much depth of sound as possible. Added to Lanois’ studio crew, Nelson brought Bobbie and Mickey Raphael to the sessions, reflecting his desire to recreate the pared-down feel of his live show. There was never any talk of using the full Family Band. Lanois suggested getting a backing singer in and Nelson said, ‘Well, Emmylou’s the best. She should come in and we’ll work her little tail off!’ Harris hooked up with Nelson and Lanois in Las Vegas and they rode the bus together to California, picking songs and rehearsing harmonies on the way. Lanois kept phoning ahead to the studio to let them know what they were doing, and as soon as they arrived they were ready to go.

  Daniel Lanois: As soon as Willie walked in, we recorded. He would keep his trailer out back of the theatre, he had his wife and his two young kids with him, and in between songs he would just go out there and relax and smoke pot. I would listen to the song we just did, do a little mix right on the spot and then move on – start rehearsing the band for the next one. When I thought they were ready to get through it I’d go and get Willie out of his trailer and
we’d knock out the next one.

  For Nelson it was almost like making a movie, except it took only 4 days, during which they recorded 22 songs. Some of the takes on Nelson classics were close to definitive: ‘Home Motel’, with Brad Meldhau’s superb piano accompaniment, was spine-tingling and tear-inducing, a ‘Danny Boy’ for those suffering from a terminal case of self-pity. ‘Three Days’, ‘Can’t Let You Say Goodbye’ and ‘I Never Cared For You’ all fitted the rhythmic structure perfectly. The clean, clear version of ‘I’ve Just Destroyed The World’ was an easy joy, but other transformations and song choices weren’t quite so successful. The ghost of Nelson’s original ‘Spirit Mk II’ concept could still be sensed in the inclusion of the two instrumentals that opened and closed the record, including a painstakingly rehearsed version of Django Reinhardt’s ‘Ou Est Tu, Mon Amour?’ for which, said Nelson, ‘my left hand hates me’.13

  Rather than being a companion piece to Spirit, as originally intended, Teatro was instead an evolution, moving out of stark sorrow and pushing up into the overground. ‘A stretching out’, as Nelson put it,14 from low spirits to high ones. What the record had in common with its predecessor was not its final feel, but its unity and coherence of sound, its brash sense of purpose. It was driven, full of rhythm and energy, largely down to the manner in which it was recorded.

  Mickey Raphael: He was the most minimalistic producer we’ve worked with. We would go over the song maybe two or three times. Willie would come in and we’d play the song, and it could change with Willie there. Then listening to playback was the mix! Several times I wanted to either fix a part of mine or I thought I could do it better, and it was like, ‘Nope – we’re keeping that.’ With Daniel every [take] could be it. You want the spontaneity too, it doesn’t have to be perfect.

  At the end of the four days Nelson got back on the bus and drove away with a completed album, fully mixed, in his pocket. Even by his standards, it was quick and instantly rewarding, and provided robust confirmation that he was still moving forwards. There is, however, a lingering sense that the purity of Nelson’s hopes for Teatro were muddied a little by Lanois’ firm hold of the reins. He has probably the most distinctive sound of any producer working today, heavy on the reverb, draping a smoky, sweaty patina over almost everything he touches.

  In a sense, the degree to which you loved or hated Teatro depended largely on how much you loved or hated Lanois’ trademark auteur flourishes. Nelson let himself be directed. Lanois saw him as ‘old school, as a lot of folks from his era are: Sinatra, Ray Charles, they just walk in and sing’, and the producer duly built a distinctive musical home for him to inhabit. Nelson himself admitted that the album ‘extended . . . out into Daniel Lanois’ spiritual journey a little bit’,15 but he seemed happy with the finished product, and it certainly put him back in the centre ground. It sold well and was critically acclaimed.

  Willie Nelson: The stuff that Daniel is doing is on-the-edge stuff, and I like it.16 When you have a producer, you’ve really got to trust him. You’ve got to say, ‘OK, take it.’17

  Soon after the release of Teatro in September 1998 he received a momentous recognition, the Kennedy Center Honors for a lifetime achievement in performing arts, presented by President Bill Clinton. It is the highest accolade in the country for an artist: Dylan had received it the previous year. Nelson arrived at the December ceremony in Washington in black tuxedo, black cowboy hat, black boots and black velvet braiding on his hair, still wondering aloud whether they had got the right ‘Nelson’. Later, his bus, the Honeysuckle Rose was driven onto the reinforced stage and the likes of Kris Kristofferson, Dwight Yoakam, Lyle Lovett and Shelby Lynne serenaded him with his own songs as Don Was’s ‘Willie Nelson Tribute Band’ provided backing.

  It was a sweet moment, but not definitive. He was 65-years-old, and although now an elder statesman he remained almost impossible to pin down. He duetted with Beck for a movie soundtrack, filmed a genuinely amusing cameo as a songwriter hired to write an anti-Albanian propaganda song in the anti-war satire Wag The Dog (‘Albania’s hard to rhyme’) and featured in a charity wrestling match with ‘Tex’ Cobb, which he threw himself into with gusto. ‘I lived through it, which was the main thing,’18 he later laughed. He had taken up tae kwon do alongside his wife and kids – ‘you know what they say, the family that kicks together sticks together’ – and was still running and looking after himself, drinking special water from Houston made from aloe vera. He would park in the grounds of the ranch, within sight of his $4m home, and watch TV with his two boys on the bus. And for those who mentioned the dread word ‘retirement’, Nelson fired off a well-oiled one liner: ‘All I do is play golf and play music – which one do you want me to give up?’

  I HAVE NO REASON TO THINK ABOUT QUITTING ANYTHING

  WILLIE NELSON IS talking about the end.

  ‘Well, I think there’s probably that thing where, you know, nobody wants to be the first one to admit that it’s time to quit,’ he says a little hesitantly. ‘I definitely don’t want to be that guy.’

  He is 72-years-old and he looks it. Tired, worn, but strong. His arms are tough as teak. His eyes are a little droopy and glazed, but that will be the dope. His hair is thick and long and still auburn in places. His trainers are white. His brain is still receiving and transmitting clearly, although he veers between saying things that make perfect sense to everyone and things that simply make sense to him. That might be the dope as well.

  Men half his age grow tired of this life: of buses, stages, aeroplanes and cold hotel rooms exactly like this one, handing out autographs and endlessly shaking hands with strangers. Yet there is a defiance about him. He shows no signs that he will be turning around and heading back down the road at this late stage.

  ‘My health is good, I think my attitude is good, and I have no reason to think about quitting anything,’ he says. ‘Whatever the opposite of that is, I guess, is where I’m at. I have a lot of energy. That can be a problem or ... ha ha ha!’

  What he means is that the road keeps him out of trouble, gives him a purpose. He could play his music in one solitary spot but it wouldn’t work. He is still capable of twisting and turning for a few more miles down the road. He thinks for a second. ‘Right now I’m working on about six different albums: we’ve got about six albums going on.’

  Six albums. How could he stop? Why would he want to? He inspires devotion and love and can feel it every time he walks into a room. Typically, he turns it around. ‘Well, I think I have a lot of devotion toward a lot of people that I feel like I’ve been obligated to through the years as well,’ he says. ‘I feel like I owe them something. So I don’t mind admitting that.’

  He pauses and finally allows himself to consider the other side of the equation. When he walked into the lobby of the hotel earlier today he reduced one woman to tears of surprise and joy. Perhaps he is thinking about her now. Perhaps it’s someone else.

  ‘I’m sure there are people out there who maybe feel the same way about me,’ he says. He smiles the Willie Nelson smile and locks into deep eye contact. He is thinking about why he is here, in this room, in this city, in this country, in the world. Tonight he will step out of the bus, walk onto the stage with his friends, throw his hands out towards the mass of humanity that has gathered in one place to see, hear and feel him, and he will be back home again.

  He breathes out, long and slow.

  ‘And that’s great too.’

  14. 1999–2005

  WILLIE NELSON: ONCE you’ve reached that point where it seems like you’ve been through the fires and you’re still here, then that in itself is a miracle – that you survived all these things. There is enough reason there for jubilation, I think.1

  Johnny Bush has a saying: ‘Old age takes care of a lot of the things the preacher takes the credit for.’ The manner in which Nelson has burrowed into the twenty-first century stands in simultaneous agreement and defiance of this statement. He is still living an extraordinary life for a father,
husband, grandfather and great-grandfather well into his eighth decade on earth. His antics might still concern the average preacher, as he criss-crosses the country for eight or nine months each year, fervently smoking the kind of dope which floors men half his age and twice his size after barely a puff, still taking the occasional sip of tequila and inviting a little madness to descend.

  On the other hand, he is a black belt in tae kwon do, preaches peace to his children and has become increasingly vocal about political, environmental and military issues: he waxes evangelical about the merits of Biodiesel, an alternative fuel source he endorses, and recently wrote a furious diatribe against the Iraq War entitled ‘Whatever Happened To Peace On Earth?’, asking rhetorically of fellow Texan, President George W. Bush: ‘How much oil is one human life worth/ How much is a liar’s word worth?’ In some lights he passes for a conventional member of liberal society.

  More and more of his down time away from the road is nowadays spent in the house in Spreckelsville, Hawaii, where his wife Annie lives permanently and the boys go to school. He long ago learned not to count his chickens domestically, but the incessant womanising appears to have stopped – he now characterises himself as an admirer rather than a participator in these matters. But he is still wrestling with the eternal dilemma that has no resolution: his deep spiritual need for a home and a family, and the refusal of his road fever – and all the attendant trouble that brings – to dissipate. As long as he walks that line – and he always will – he knows that everything is endlessly open to question.

  Willie Nelson: I am married. She may not hang onto me, but so far, so good. So far, so good.2 We’ve got two teenage boys. They are great kids. Sweet kids. They don’t like it when I leave to go on tour. For that matter, neither do I. But that’s the way my job is. I tried quittin’ for a while but I just couldn’t handle it.3