Willie Hugh Nelson (natural April 30, 1933) is an American guitar player & country singer, originally from Abbott, Texas. He reached his greatest fame in a period of the outlaw country movement of the 1970s, though he had already be famed as a 1960s songwriter.

Biographical details

Beginnings

Nelson & his sister, Bobbie Nelson, were raised by their grandparents fallowing their father died & their mother ran away. He lived in the adjacent house to his right friend, Ross Cleveland, world health organization was an tiptop left-handed pitcher for the Abbott High Panthers. Ross & Willie too played on the football & five. the bit of times, when Ross & others picked cotton gauze in the fields, Willie would buy a tree & sleep under that. Willie played a guitar, while Bobbie played a piano. She met Bud Fletcher, the fiddler, & two sib joined his band when Willie was around high school.

Fallowing graduation, Nelson joined a Air Force, but left due to back problems. One of these days, he became the DJ at a united states radio station in Fort Worth, Texas, while singing locally in honky tonk bars. Around 1956, Nelson moved to Vancouver, Washington to begin a musical career by recording "Lumberjack" by Leon Payne. the lone sold respectably however did non establish a career. Nelson continued to DJ & sing inside clubs, & sold the song known as "Family Bible" for fifty dollars; the song was a hit for Claude Gray within 1960, has been covered widely, and is typically considered the gospel music classic.

Popular songwriter

Nelson moved to Nashville, Tennessee but was unable to land a record label contract. He did, notwithstanding, receive the publication contract at Pamper Music. Fallowing Ray Price recorded Nelson's "Night Life" (reputedly a virtually a lot covered united states song of all period), Nelson joined Price's touring band as a bassist. When swimming using Ray Price & the Cherokee Cowboys, many of Nelson's songs became hits. "Funny How Time Slips Away" (Billy Walker), "Hello Walls" (Faron Young), "Pretty Paper" (Roy Orbison) and, virtually all famously, "Crazy" (Patsy Cline) became popular songs in the 1960s. Nelson signed using Liberty Records in 1961 and released many singles, including a hits "Willingly" (sustaining his married woman, Shirley Collie) & "Touch Me". He was unable to keep his divergence running, though, & Nelson's career ground to the prevent. Demo recordings from his years when a songster for Pamper Music were late found & freed as Crazy: A Demonstration Sessions (2003). His household life in a time of this period was besides colorful, to say the least. His alcoholism, failing day jobs, & taste for carrying guns had him within pain sustaining the law & his married woman a total of days.

Austin

Within 1965, Nelson moved to RCA Records and joined the Grand Ole Opry, followed by a series of minor hits. Foiled sustaining the music business which tried to click him into a mold, Nelson retired & moved to Austin, Texas. Patch around Austin, using its burgeoning hippie music scene (see Armadillo World Headquarters), Nelson decided to return to music. His popularity within Austin soared, when he played his have brand of country and western marked by rock and roll, jazz, western swing, and folk influences. The womb-to-tomb passion for running and a newly commitment to his have health besides began in the time of this period.

Outlaw country

Signing using Atlantic Records, Nelson released Shotgun Willie (1973), which won excellent reviews however did non sell swell. Phases & Stages (1974), a concept album inspired by his divorce, included deuce hit singles, "Bloody Mary Morning" & "After the Fire is Gone". Nelson so moved to Columbia Records, where he tend complete originative control above his function. A symptom was a critically acclaimed, massively popular conception album, Red Headed Stranger (1975). Though Columbia was reluctant to release an album by owning mostly upright a guitar & piano for accompaniment, Nelson (by having the assistance of Waylon Jennings) insisted and the album was the brobdingnagian hit, partly because it involved a popular handle of "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" (Roy Acuff).

Along sustaining Nelson, Waylon Jennings was besides achieving massive profits around country and western in the early 1970s, and the pair were before long combined into a genre known as outlaw country ("outlaw" because it did non conform to Nashville standards). the term was coined by a united states music journalist, and cemented by having a release of Precious: A Crook! (1976 with Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter, and Tompall Glaser), country music's foremost platinum album. Nelson continued to top a charts with hit songs during a late 1970s, including "Good Hearted Woman" (the duet using Jennings), "Remember Me", "If You've Got the Money I've Got the Time", "Uncloudy Day", "I Love You a Thousand Ways" and "Something to Brag About" (the duet by having Mary Kay Place). Around 1978, Nelson released 2 other pt albums, Waylon & Willie (the collaboration by owning Jennings that involved one of Nelson's signature songs, "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys") & Stardust, an unusual, string-depending album of popular songs produced by Booker T. Jones. Though virtually all observers predicted that Stardust would ruin his career, it ended higher existence one of his virtually all successful LPs.

Acting career

Nelson began acting, appearing in The Electric Horseman (1979), Honeysuckle Rose (1980), Red-Headed Stranger (1986, with Morgan Fairchild), and a 1986 TV movie Stagecoach (with the late Johnny Cash, the late Waylon Jennings, & Kris Kristofferson, all of whom would form the band sustaining Nelson known as A Highwaymen)). He has continued acting since his early successes, however ordinarily around smaller roles & cameos, a good lesson existence Half Baked. He has manufactured guest appearance on the Simpsons, Monk and King of the Hill. He plays Uncle Jesse in the 2005 cinematic remaking of The Dukes of Hazzard.

Hits, excesses, and Farm Aid

A eighties saw a series of hit singles: "Always on my Mind" (originally manufactured popular by Elvis Presley), "On The Road Again" from either a picture Honeysuckle Rose, & "To All the Girls I've Loved Before" (the duet by using Julio Iglesias). There were likewise additional popular albums, including Pancho and Lefty (1982, with Merle Haggard), WWII (1982, with Waylon Jennings) and Choose it to the hilt (1983, by owning a late Waylon Jennings).

In the mid Eighties, Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, & Johnny Cash formed the class action known as The Highwaymen. Within spite of their unexpectedly massive successes, including pt record sales & worldwide traveling, Nelson's popularity declined dramatically. He became extra & supplementary required inside charity function, like establishing a Farm Aid concerts in 1985. He as well became known for his fiscal excesses, including the personal jet, his own village, the palatial estate, & the personal golf course.

Around 1990, the IRS gave Nelson a bill for $16.7 million within back revenue enhancement & took away virtually all of his plus to help pay a charges. He freed ''A IRS Tapes: World health organization'll Steal The Memories?'' as a double album, by owning completely profit running straight to the IRS. Numerous of his plus were auctioned & purchased by friends, world health organization gave his possessions back to him or even rented the babies at the nominal fee. His debts were paid by 1993.

Hard-drivin' American troubadour

He freed Through a Mete inside 1993, by using guests Bob Dylan, Sinéad O'Connor, David Crosby, Bonnie Raitt, Kris Kristofferson and Paul Simon.

When you took a 1990s and 2000s, Nelson has toured continuously & freed albums that usually received mixed reviews, by using a exception of 1998's critically acclaimed Teatro (which was produced by Daniel Lanois -- more normally known for his act using U2 -- and featured supporting vocals by Emmylou Harris).

Nelson received Kennedy Center Honors in 1998. The star-studded television special celebrating his 70th birthday aired within 2003. Within 2004, he freed Criminal & Angels, featuring guests Toby Keith, Joe Walsh, Merle Haggard, Kid Rock, Al Green, Shelby Lynne, Carole King, Toots Hibbert, Ben Harper, Lee Ann Womack, The Holmes Brothers, Los Lonely Boys, Lucinda Williams, Keith Richards and Rickie Lee Jones.

Environmental and Social endeavors

Nelson, fellow musician Neil Young and two more business partners recently (2005) formed the company known as ''Willie Nelson's Biodiesel'' (aka BioWillie) that is marketing Biodiesel biofuel to truck stops. A fuel is manufactured from either oil, chiefly soybeans, & may be burned while forgoing modification around diesel motor [http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,66288,00.html].

Willie besides sits when co-chair on the NORML advisory board, which include such names when Bill Mahr, Mark Stepnoski, Daniel Stern, Lester Grinspoon, M.D. from either a Harvard Medical School, & Sheriff Bill Masters of Telluride, CO. He has been working by having a organization for several years around an attempt to 'normalize' a have of cannabis. Simply this preceding month (2005), Willie & his personal hosted a 1st annual Willie Nelson & NORML Benefit Golf Tournament and will appear on the cover of High Times Magazine.

In January 9, 2005, Nelson headlined an completely-star concert at Austin Music Hall, to advantage a sportsmen of the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake. Tsunami Relief Austin to Asia raised an forecasted $120,000 for UNICEF and two more organizations.

Popular image
Willie Nelson is widely recognized as an Our contries icon. His distinctive music for instance will require the backseat to his public image, that of the marijuana smoking old hippie poet-singer. His image is marked by his red hair, typically braided into 2 ponytails & part concealed under the bandanna. He has been featured inside recent advertizing for the kind of products & corporations, including The Gap.

In the period of a controversial 2003 Texas Congressional Redistricting, Nelson mass produced the news by sending a outbreak of whiskey to the Democrats of the Texas Legislature around self-imposed exile in Ardmore, Oklahoma. An bonded note scan "Stand your ground." Inside 2005 a Democratic representative around Texas' general assembly attempted to title role of the main road when Nelson, however fallowing [http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/legislature/entries/2005/04/27/no_highway_for_willie.html opposition] from either a bit of Republican lawgiver (world health organization claimed Nelson did non warrant mention since he experienced nothing to clean sustaining a creation of the main road), he dropped his project.

Willie Nelsin performed the duet on "Beer for my Horses" by having Toby Keith on Keith's Unleashed album released within 2002. This song was freed as the individual around 2003 & Nelson shot a streaming videos sustaining Keith around 2003. It won an award for "Best Video" at a Academy of United states Music Awards held in May 26, 2004.

The Willie Nelson family

Nelson's touring & recording class action occurs as collection of the total of long-standing members, including his sister Bobbie Nelson, longtime drummer Paul English, harmonicist Mickey Raphael, Bee Spears, & Jody Payne. It tour Northward Usa in their bus, a "Honeysuckle Rose II".

Nelson's primary guitar occurs as Martin N-20 nylon-string acoustic, which he has named "Trigger", when Roy Rogers' horse. Constant strumming on top a decades has worn a big sweeping hole into the guitar's system touching a healthy hole. Its sounding board has been signed above the years by on top a hundred of Nelson's friends & associates, from either fellow musicians to attorney & football coaches.

Selected works

Albums

Nelson has freed twelve of albums under the total of different labels; which are actually a bit of of his virtually all notable accomplishments. Bolded albums reached #1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart.