We’d gather around the radio to hear President Roosevelt deliver his fireside chats. Those were moments of comfort. He was a father reassuring his children. He exuded an authority and confidence that made these dangerous days less scary. When the war broke out just around the time of Daddy Nelson’s death, we saw young men from Abbott enlist. We prayed for their safe return. The radio broadcast news reports from foreign battlefields, yet it was hard to grasp the severity of the situation. At my age, I was more attuned to the entertainment floating over the airwaves.
Naturally I loved the cowboy adventures like The Lone Ranger, but also the comedies—Jack Benny, Fred Allen, and Burns and Allen. There were the mysteries like The Green Hornet and The Shadow, and the soap operas like Stella Dallas and Our Gal Sunday that Mama Nelson never missed.
In 1943, the year I turned ten, another radio personality caught my ear. Frank Sinatra joined Your Hit Parade. And though he was a million miles from western swing, he had a sweet swing of his own. There was a tenderness to his voice, a purity and ease of phrasing. When he sang the popular songs of the day, I marveled at the natural way he told the story. When he sang with trombonist Tommy Dorsey, I heard how he used his voice like an instrument. And when Dorsey played his mellow trombone, I heard how he used his instrument like a voice.
I also loved Louis Armstrong, who sang like he played and played like he sang. There was this same naturalness in the sound of Bing Crosby’s voice, a singer who made you feel that he was right there in the room telling you a story. I didn’t know the word “intimacy” then, but I felt it. Even in Abbott, where it hardly ever snowed, “White Christmas” had me dreaming of a winter landscape. Like Sinatra, Crosby turned singing into more of a conversation than a performance. He put you at ease. He spoke right to you. He made you feel he truly cared about you.
Same year Sinatra came on Your Hit Parade, Ernest Tubb came on The Grand Ole Opry. Because Tubb was a Texan, I related to him as a neighbor. Like Sinatra and Crosby, he sang conversationally. I also learned much from his writing.
Along with Ernest Tubb, Floyd Tillman and Roy Acuff were artists who touched my heart. I have a precious memory of Mama Nelson singing Acuff’s “Great Speckled Bird.” It’s a mystical song about a bird descending from heaven to carry us up to meet the Lord. The bird has enemies—forces that would devour him—but the bird prevails because of his faith.
“God always prevails,” Mama Nelson never tired of telling us, “because God is good and goodness can never be defeated.”
All this music, sung on the radio, sung by my grandma, and played on the piano by sister Bobbie, was haunting my imagination. I didn’t take it in critically; I took it in viscerally.
Because I was surrounded by such a richness of sound, I felt myself part of these sounds. I never approached music as an outsider. I never thought that Roy Acuff or Ernest Tubb or Bob Wills or even Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby were doing something that I could not do. It wasn’t that I was conceited. Nor did I have delusions of grandeur. It was simply that I was a kid who enjoyed a natural and familiar relationship with music. Early on, I saw that I could play it, sing it, and—maybe easiest of all—write it.
How else can you explain ten- or eleven-year-old Booger Red putting together something he called the Willie Nelson Songbook?
I designed the booklet myself, using a cowboy motif and roman numerals to index the twelve lyrics I had written. Songs had names like “I Guess I Was Born to Be Blue,” “Faded Love and Wasted Dream,” “The Storm Has Just Begun,” “I’ll Wander Alone.” I guess the melancholy was already there. On the back I drew a lariat composed of the phrase “Howdy, pard.” It’s also telling that I did not write “Willie Nelson Songs, Abbott, Texas,” but instead wrote “Willie Nelson Songs, Waco, Texas.” I suppose I wanted to give the book a big-city boost, and Waco was the closest big city to tiny Abbott.
Around town I had seen the various songbooks of the day—songbooks by Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers, Roy Acuff and Hoagy Carmichael. To put myself in their company, it seemed only logical that I would have a songbook of my own.
When Mama Nelson leafed through my little book and looked over the lyrics, she saw that there were mainly songs about loss. She wondered why there weren’t songs about loving the Lord.
“There will be,” I promised her. “I’ll write those kinds of songs, too.”
She couldn’t help but smile. She saw that her young grandson had ambition and a modicum of talent.
“This is good work, Willie,” she said, “and I’m proud of you. But just don’t forget that, while you are creating beautiful songs, God is the real creator. He created you, just like he created the music inside you.”
Through the influence of Daddy and Mama Nelson, I had great love for my creator. But I can’t say that I abided by the rules of the churchgoers who claimed—in the hard-core culture of Hill County, Texas—that smoking and drinking would send me straight to hell.
As a kid, I’d sneak off and smoke anything that burned. Loved to smoke. Would even smoke strips of cedar bark. The various substances have changed over the years, but the act itself has never ceased to satisfy me.
Smoking might also relate to my strong mischievous streak. I loved to stir things up. When I was a boy, farmers, whose plowing was impeded by the presence of bumblebee nests, would have me and my pals go out there and stir the nests. To get some air going, we’d drill holes into Ping-Pong paddles, take one in each hand, and start whacking the nests. We’d wind up killing dozens of bees, but not before dozens of other bees stung our eyes to where we’d walk home half blind. The adventure was worth the pain.
I didn’t mind physical pain. I was taken in by those Charles Atlas ads in comic books that talked about “the Insult That Made a Man Out of ‘Mac.’ ” There was the bully kicking sand in the face of the skinny guy. Send off for Atlas’s “Dynamic-Tension” method of bodybuilding and learn to fight back. Well, I did send off, I did start bulking up, and, while I didn’t win every fight, I did manage to get a reputation as a formidable scrapper. That began my lifelong interest in training and eventually a passion for martial arts.
I played all the sports, and played them hard. Throughout my school years in Abbott, I was on the Fighting Panthers track, baseball, basketball, and football teams, where at various times I started at quarterback, halfback, and center. We played on a dirt field that was rocky as hell. Because I was small, I got the shit kicked out of me. Wound up with a broken nose and busted collarbone, but nothing stopped me. The drive to compete overwhelmed any fear of injury. When the injuries did come, I didn’t feel defeated or depressed. The minute I healed up, I was back out there.
In my childhood memories, the rugged athletic battles loom large, but no larger than moments of sacred song. Close to our little house and the corner where the Methodist church sat directly across from the Baptist church was an outdoor tabernacle made of wood and covered in vine. When the weather was good, folks from all over Hill County would sit on benches and, as afternoon turned to evening, listen to the singing and preaching. There were times when, distracted, I’d go off and play marbles with the other kids. But other times, especially when the holy hymns came down from the heavens, I felt drawn to the miracles described in the music.
There was also the draw of the city, via miraculous transportation provided by Interurban, an electric train that went from Waco to Dallas, with stops in towns as small as Abbott. This was the era before interstate highways. I could jump on the Interurban and, for just a few cents, be transported to these big cities. The Interurban allowed me to take my first girlfriend, Ramona Stafford, to the Texas State Fair in Dallas, where we rode through the tunnel of love and I dared to put my arm around her. That took some guts.
It took less guts to start playing at the school dances. I could watch the dancers from the stage—always my preferred position—and not worry about being rejected by some girl who might not like the way I danced. Music was my protection.
Music was
also my provider. The Interurban station stood close to the cotton gin, the town’s only café, the churches, and the barbershop. I got the brilliant idea of convincing Mr. Clements to let me set up a shoeshine stand in his barbershop. After shining shoes, I’d ask the customer his favorite song—and I’d sing it, right then and there. With passengers coming off the Interurban, I was certain that the sound of a song would bring them into the shop.
I did this for a day, shining a dozen pairs of shoes and singing a dozen songs.
“You did good,” Mr. Clements told me. “Here’s a quarter.”
I was expecting at least a couple of dollars.
“A couple of dollars,” said Mr. Clements, “is all I make in a day.”
Knowing Mr. Clements to be an honest man, I accepted the coin and thanked him. But I also closed up shop. There had to be a better way to make money making music.
Other than by teaching music, Mama Nelson, too, was looking for another way to make money. Always thinking of her grandkids, she got a job in the kitchen of the school cafeteria. This was a blessing because, beyond what we grew in our garden, we were guaranteed an abundance of leftovers. My grandmother’s ability to sustain us in all ways was a source of great security.
Ironically, it was that same sense of security that allowed me to do something that Mama Nelson strongly disapproved of. It happened in the sixth grade. I was ten, a member in good standing of the Methodist church and a devoted grandson. At the same time, when I was invited to play music in a beer joint, I said to hell with all the objections raised by the Bible-thumpers.
I took the job and found myself on a road—a raucous, rocky, crazy road—and the same road that, to this day, I’m still traveling.
3
FIRST FAMILY BAND
MY SENSE OF MUSIC AS FAMILY was there from the get-go. After all, music was presented to me as a family affair.
So it makes perfect sense that my professional debut came in the form of a fifteen-person family band led by John Rejcek. It was a polka band that also played waltzes for the Czech community that flocked to dance halls around West and Waco. Rejcek’s family members were horn players, fiddlers, bass players, drummers, and singers. The last thing they needed was a kid strumming a Stella guitar. But I guess ol’ John took a liking to me. He sensed how much I loved the dance music he played and invited me into his group.
Up on the bandstand, I was in heaven. I didn’t do much to add to the overall sound. But I was in the mix. I got to play those polkas and watch the beer-drinking crowds stomp on the dance floor and have a ball. Even though its origins were European and a world away from Hill County, Texas, the music had a spirit I could feel. Just being part of the band made me feel that I was accepted. As a preteen picker, I felt that I had already made it.
That powerful feeling came early in my musical life. For me, it was enough to see that the music being made by me, no matter how small my contribution, pleased a crowd. More and more, I was driven by one thought: music makes people happy.
Mama Nelson was hardly happy when she learned that I was playing beer joints with the Rejcek band.
“I don’t want you in places where there’s smoking and drinking,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am. I understand. But the music is good.”
“The music I’ve taught you, Willie, the music you’re singing at church, is more than good. It’s holy. It’s sacred.”
“I realize that.”
“And you’ll honor that?”
“Always. But I also have to say something else, if I may.”
“Go on, son.”
“In the summers, I can work in the fields all week for eight dollars, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s what Mr. Rejcek paid me for only one night in Waco.”
For all her love of the Lord and the Lord’s music, Mama Nelson was a practical woman. She had a family to raise on her own. And when I took the eight dollars out of my pocket and handed it to her, I could see the surprise on her face. I could see her disposition change. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. From then on, she never complained about her little Willie playing dances where folks were smoking and dancing and having a natural ball.
As I grew up, my father, Ira, and mother, Myrle, continued living their separate lives. Ira had moved to Fort Worth, married a nice lady named Lorraine, and started a new family. Mother Myrle had also married again, but not for long. About the same time I started with John Rejcek, Mom showed up in Abbott with her third husband, Ken. By then she’d been out to California and was on her way to the state of Washington.
Mama Nelson didn’t approve of her daughter-in-law’s drinking and partying ways any more than she approved of my playing in a polka band. Yet she had the wisdom to accept reality. My mother would always be something of a wild child. Mama Nelson saw that same streak of wildness in me. She saw that, given their nature, Ira and Myrle were doing the best they could. She understood that, in their own way, they loved me and Bobbie. She never tried to poison our minds against our parents. Her openhearted attitude allowed us to keep our hearts open as well. Mother and Father would continue to run in and out of our lives for decades to come. And that was just fine with us.
We were about to get a new family member, besides.
Time to introduce the next major character in my musical life:
Meet Bud Fletcher.
A charmer and a hustler, Bud had charmed his way into our family by courting sister Bobbie. He was in his early twenties and Bobbie was sweet sixteen. Bud was a handsome guy, Bobbie a gorgeous gal, and cupid struck with lightning speed. They met in March and married in April. But Bobbie, the most popular girl at school, wasn’t about to shortchange her education. She stayed on for her senior year, played basketball, played piano at all the big functions, and became the first married student to attend and graduate Abbott High.
Seeing Sister’s talent—and a little bit of mine—Bud took it upon himself to form a band. Using Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys as a model, he put together Bud Fletcher and the Texans. There was one problem, though. Bud couldn’t sing or play any instrument. But that didn’t bother Bud. As Bobbie said, “Bud stuck a broom handle into a bucket of sand and whacked it like a bass.” His main job—his only job—was to act as the joke-cracking, fun-loving bandleader. He’d coax the crowd into dancing, call off the names of the tunes, and then let me and Bobbie lead the way.
I was the picker and singer, but I was really shadowing everything Sister did. She knew every song in every style. She covered up all my mistakes.
Bud’s ability to get us booked, even with our ragtag sound, was a godsend. We played joints in Waco like the Avalon Club and the Scenic Wonderful. We also had gigs in West and Hillsboro. Sister and I gave all our earnings to Mama Nelson, who wasn’t thrilled about Bobbie’s marriage to Bud but was thankful for the money.
Bud Fletcher and his band also opened another huge door for us: radio.
Not only did Sister and I get to go on the air for the first time during a talent show on station WACO, but we—in the guise of Bud Fletcher and the Texans—actually got a quarter-hour show of our own on KHBR, the little station operating out of Hillsboro.
If you can believe it, some of the gals at Abbott High even formed a Willie Nelson fan club. So if I tell you that, at age fourteen, I already felt as though I had hit the big time, you’ll understand. Didn’t matter that I hadn’t left Hill County. Didn’t matter that most of our gigs were at run-down beer parlors and sawdust-on-the-floor roadhouses. All that mattered was that I was up there with my guitar, singing my heart out.
I was connecting.
I was also promoting. With the help of Bud Fletcher, the fearless hustler, I figured I could do a little hustling of my own. And rather than start at the bottom, I figured I might as well go for broke. I decided I’d promote a show with Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys.
May not sound like much to you, but it was as if the mayor of Abbott was inviting President T
ruman to come down and address our five-member city council.
To a starry-eyed wannabe like me, Bob Wills was the president of music. He represented supreme accomplishment. Not only had he helped create and carry his western swing out to California and back across the country to Chicago and New York, but he’d written songs that all the other popular bandleaders, like Adolph Hofner and Dewey Groom, were quick to cover. When he started using two fiddlers, everyone followed suit. When he added a third, you can bet that the rest of the boys did the same. When he hired the great Johnny Gimble to play electric mandolin, you suddenly saw electric mandolins popping up everywhere. When he had gals singing ballads or yodeling or belting out dance tunes, every other country music bandleader copied his formula.
What gave me the guts to think that I, a fourteen-year-old, could book Bob Wills at an outdoor pavilion by Lake Whitney, some twenty miles from Abbott?
Just seemed like something I should try. At the very least, it was a way to see Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys live and in person. That was even more important than the potential profit.
Fact is, I didn’t make any money. I did put up posters all over Hill County, and I did go on the Hillsboro radio station to tell the folks about this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the King of Western Swing. And folks did show up—maybe four or five hundred strong. But the gate receipts barely covered Wills’s fee—around a thousand dollars—with nothing left over for me.
Didn’t matter. The summer night was magical. After a scorching hot Texas afternoon, the temperature had cooled down. Moonlight glistened on the silky-smooth surface of Lake Whitney. The sky was crowded with a thousand stars. Fireflies flickered over the heads of the happy dancers. I didn’t dance. I couldn’t even move from my spot at the foot of the bandstand.
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