And Then I Wrote

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Red Headed Stranger: Charts & Awards (Billboard Singles)". AllMusic. Rovi Corporation . Retrieved June 12, 2011. I've decided to make a real effort at listening to every Willie Nelson album before he inevitably passes (and trust me, it hurts my heart to think about the day he's laid to rest), which is going to be quite the undertaking... Texas Monthly ran an article ranking every release of his and they claimed a round 150. If I listen to two studio albums of his every day I'll finish... around mid to late August. This'll be fun.

And I do mean that, it'll be fascinating to see how the biggest name in the history of Texas music evolved throughout his 61 year career. Not enough people care about Nelson's contributions to music (which is entirely due to his genre, coastal yuppies aren't paying attention I can confirm that much for you) and I think most just see him as a gentle sage who smokes a lot of pot. But take a good gander at his musical accomplishments--he's the man who made country music into a legit artform, like Pet Sounds did to pop music, Public Enemy to hip hop, and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band to the album. Country music is easily separated by two eras in my opinion, before Red Headed Stranger and after, and that's not even discussing Phases and Stages which is the (debatably) better but not as iconic album that preceded it that similarly attempted the country concept album. Though the 1962 single “Touch Me” did reach the country Top 10, Nelson’s debut album, And Then I Wrote, failed to chart, as did his follow-up album, Here’s Willie Nelson. It seemed his efforts as a performing artist would fail to bring the success that others enjoyed from recording his songs. Return to Texas Fueled by the success of his songwriting, he was signed by Liberty Records. During August, Nelson started recording his first album, produced by Joe Allison. The single releases of the album " Touch Me" and " The Part Where I Cry" were recorded on that day in Nashville, Tennessee, while it was completed during September in the recording facilities of the label in Los Angeles, California. The single "Touch Me" became Nelson's second top ten, reaching number 7 on Billboard's Hot Country Singles. a b c Edwards, David; Callahan, Mike. "The Liberty Records Story". Both Sides Now. Both Sides Now Publications . Retrieved February 7, 2011.Country singer and songwriter Willie Nelson rose to prominence at the end of the 1960s and contributed to the "outlaw country" subgenre, which challenged the music industry conservatism of Nashville at the time. During his lengthy, award-winning career, he has written some of the most popular and memorable country songs of all time, many of which have been covered by a wide range of artists over the last half-century. Now in his 80s, Nelson continues to record, tour and devote time to charitable and political causes. Early Life Around this time, Nelson’s collaborative endeavors found fertile ground as well. Along with Jennings, Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser, he contributed to the compilation Wanted! The Outlaws (1976), which also achieved both critical and commercial success. Grammys for 'Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up' and 'Georgia on My Mind' As a child, Nelson’s love of the farming life was cemented as he raised calves and hogs, and helped tend the vegetables alongside his beloved grandparents. “Even though I didn’t use fancy words like ‘horticulturalist’ or ‘breeder,’ I was developing skills at farming,” he writes of the time. “Not only because of my grandparents’ instructions but because I was a member in good standing of the Future Farmers of America, a proud organization that was strong in the rural cities of Depression-time America.” Nelson also continued to collaborate with a range of recording artists. In 2008, he performed live in Amsterdam with rap icon Snoop Dogg, and the duo went on to work together on the video for "My Medicine." In 2009, Nelson teamed up with music group Asleep at the Wheel to release the country swing album Willie and the Wheel, and that same year he released Naked Willie, which included new mixes of his early recordings. In 2010, Nelson released the critically acclaimed Country Music, a collaboration with producer T Bone Burnett.

However, with 1975’s Red-Headed Stranger, Nelson had his real first taste of success. Not only did the album reach No. 1 on the country charts, but it also crossed over to the pop Top 40. Among the highlights from the recording is the Fred Rose–penned number “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” which gave Nelson his first No. 1 country hit and earned him his first Grammy Award for best country vocal performance.After receiving the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song by the Library of Congress in 2015, Nelson released Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin (2016), a tribute to the iconic songs of George and Ira Gershwin and featuring duets with artists such as Crow and Cyndi Lauper. In 2004, Nelson started marketing his own brand of green fuel, BioWillie, a combination of diesel and biodiesel made from soybeans. "It seems like that's good for the whole world if we can start growing our own fuel instead of starting wars over it," said Nelson in a 2005 interview.

Of his longtime love affair with marijuana, Nelson writes in It’s a Long Story that “just as I’ve always loved robust coffee beans and the strong buzz produced by the brew, I felt the same way about cannabis. It pushed me in the right direction. It pushed me in a positive direction. It kept my head in my music. It kept my head filled with poetry.”

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Nelson became involved with Ann Marie D'Angelo (Annie) after they met on the set of the TV movie Stagecoach. “By then I was separated from Connie, who, like Martha and Shirley before her, had tried their level best to put up with me. No easy task,” Nelson writes of marital life in It’s a Long Story. “My years with Connie were not noted for fidelity on my part. I don’t say that to be prideful. I say it to be truthful.” Nelson continued to tour heavily, often playing as many as 150 to 200 dates a year, while maintaining his prolific songwriting output. Among the highlights from this period are The Great Divide (2002) and Countryman (2005), which incorporated elements of reggae. Erlewine, Michael (1997). All Music Guide to Country: The Experts' Guide to the Best Recordings in Country Music. Miller Freeman. ISBN 978-0-87930-475-1.

Best Known For: Willie Nelson is a country singer-songwriter known for hit songs like "Crazy" and "On the Road Again." Nelson was born on April 29, 1933, in Abbott, Texas. The son of Myrle and Ira D. Nelson, Willie and his older sister, Bobbie, were raised by their paternal grandparents during the Great Depression. In 1991, Nelson was dealt a devastating blow when his 33-year-old son Billy died on Christmas Day in what Nelson describes as “a terrible accident” in It’s a Long Story. Rarely discussing his children’s lives publicly, Nelson writes he believes “the children of entertainers – especially the children of wandering troubadours – pay a big price. Sharing your dad with the world isn’t fun. And when that dad has moved through three tumultuous marriages and is on his fourth – well, that’s no picnic. I regret the pain that my lifestyle has caused my kids.” And Then I Wrote's title reflects the fact that Nelson was a hit songwriter long before he was a solo star. And as a showcase of songwriting talent, the album is both an unheralded country classic and an excellent precursor to more expansive and well-known Nelson releases like Red Headed Stranger. These songs are stark expressions of heartbreak. “If you can't say you love me, say you hate me,” Nelson sings on “Undo the Right”, desperate to feel something. “Three Days” is darkly comic: “Three days I hate to be alive: today, yesterday and tomorrow.” “The Part Where I Cry” and “Where My House Lives” are brilliantly coded expressions of grief. In the former, Nelson describes his life as a movie (or “picture”) and sells it to the listener-turned-viewer (“I was great in the part where she found someone new”). “Where My House Lives” is a heartbreaking closer: “Here's where my house lives… I never go there / ‘Cause it holds too many memories” Nelson tells the listener, removing himself from the picture of domestic happiness and accepting the role of lonesome cowboy-drifter that would come to define his future. First few days found me a little uneasy. I had my guitar, a pencil, and a blank notebook. Hank might throw out an idea, hoping it might spark something in me. When that didn't work, he might tell me a joke, or I might tell him one, hoping that joking would lead to some kind of song. It didn't...And one afternoon, after we had just sat around throwing the bull, he said, "I'm going to the office to make a few calls. You work on something by yourself." [12]Nelson would team up with Jennings again soon after to record the popular single "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys," which won the 1978 Grammy Award for best country vocal performance by a duo or group. However, despite these successes, Nelson’s own recordings fell on deaf ears during this period. He did not fit the traditional Nashville country music mold, and whenever producers tried to make him fit they only succeeded in stripping away the qualities that helped make him unique, such as his unusual manner of phrasing. Adding to his resume of successful collaborations, the following year Nelson joined with Johnny Cash, Jennings and Kristofferson to form the country supergroup the Highwaymen. “You wouldn’t think that our four uneven voices would blend. But they did. They fit together like a jigsaw puzzle,” Nelson writes of the group in It’s a Long Story.