Willie Nelson

by Joe Nick Patoski

  Poodie Locke, Willie’s stage manager, was the only roadie in show business with his own beer joint, custom logo, and line of barbecue sauce (labels designed by David Zettner). Among the memorabilia at the Hilltop was a framed jock strap signed by Earl Campbell, the Heisman Trophy All-American running back for the University of Texas football team.

  Willie filmed three television specials between 2002 and 2004 under the title Willie Nelson & Friends for the USA Network. He invited a host of friends, including Norah Jones, Ray Price, Keith Richards, Toby Keith, Emmylou Harris, Ryan Adams, Jon Bon Jovi, Sheryl Crow, the Dixie Chicks, Vince Gill, Patty Griffin, John Hiatt, Dave Matthews, Brian McKnight, Aaron Neville, Richie Sambora, Rob Thomas, Hank Williams III, and Lee Ann Womack, to join him at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, the former Mother Church of Country Music, for the “Stars & Guitars” edition.

  “Live & Kickin’,” filmed at the Beacon Theater in New York, featured ZZ Top, Elvis Costello, Eric Clapton, Ray Charles, Sheryl Crow, Norah Jones, Diana Krall, Lyle Lovett, Shelby Lynne, Dolly Parton, Paul Simon, Shania Twain, and former president Bill Clinton.

  The third edition, “Outlaws & Angels,” at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles, was headlined by Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, rock rapper Kid Rock, and soul stylist Al Green, along with Jerry Lee Lewis, Merle Haggard, and Lucinda Williams. Ray Charles had to cancel due to illness.

  In June 2004, Brother Ray passed away. At least he and Willie had time to say their good-byes. “We did a song together in the studio in April, ‘It Was a Very Good Year’ [a song about aging and looking back],” Willie said. “We had some fun. I was at his birthday party. He and Quincy Jones and two, three, of us sat around and talked and had a drink and ate cake. Right after that I went to the Apollo Theater in Harlem for the anniversary of the theater, and Ray got a tribute that night. So I sang ‘I Can’t Stop Loving You.’”

  At Ray’s funeral, one of the few Willie has attended, Willie performed Ray’s signature piece, “Georgia on My Mind,” the official state song of Georgia; he could hardly get through the performance as his voice intermittently cracked with emotion, sounding spent and very blue. B. B. King broke up too when he played during the service. Days later, Willie embarked on a tour of minor league baseball parks with Bob Dylan, one of his few peers in the songwriting craft.

  Less than a month after a tsunami in South Asia killed more than two hundred thousand people in 2004, he headlined an Austin benefit with Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, Joe Ely, Alejandro Escovedo, and Patty Griffin that was recorded as a CD and a DVD titled Tsunami Relief: From Austin to South Asia.

  His name stayed in the public eye, even as the medium that brought him to the dance shunned him. Mark Rothbaum utilized multiple means to get Willie across, including movies, television, National Public Radio, and radio stations with AAA (adult album alternative) formats. He no longer invested money promoting his records on country radio because country radio wouldn’t play him. “That ship has sailed,” Rothbaum said. “There is no country music radio. It’s all this soft rock crap. Just because you have a pedal steel doesn’t make you country.”

  Paradise, 2004

  HE WAS A MUSICIAN but more than a musician. He was a songwriter whom some saw as a philosopher. He was a picker who knew how to rouse a crowd. He was a New Age good ol’ boy, a hillbilly Dalai Lama, as Kinky Friedman liked to call him. He was that rare high-profile person who was whatever anyone wanted him to be.

  “I see him as full of Christ-like character,” recording engineer Bobby Arnold said somberly. “I think he just realizes he’s blessed in so many ways, and it makes him incredibly generous. There’s a spirituality that is Jesus-like. He tries to make people’s lives better. No one else can touch a broken heart with words the way he can.” Tim O’Connor compared him to a messiah. Tim’s daughter had unexpectedly died during Will and Tim’s Austin Opry adventure, and Tim went to the Hill to ask Willie to cosign a $50,000 loan so he could retreat to a ranch in Montana. “If you don’t want to do that, I completely understand,” Tim told him. “But you have my word that I will repay you. I’ll even give you the title to the property.”

  “Wait a minute,” Willie said, excusing himself to go to the bedroom. He returned bearing a $50,000 check that someone had written him.

  “I’ve always hated banks, haven’t you?” he said, endorsing the back of the check and handing it to Tim. The favor prompted Tim several years later to take over a benefit concert in Crawford, Nebraska, gone bad. The promoter of the “phone deal” benefit starring Willie Nelson had left town with the money two weeks before the show. Tim stepped in to produce the concert, taking a five-figure bath for his troubles because he didn’t want the locals to think poorly of Willie.

  Whether Willie was in the room or far away, he made those around him feel good. When Jody Fischer checked into the Christopher House hospice for cancer patients in Austin, she was unknowingly placed in the Willie Nelson Room to conclude her life, much of it spent in service to Willie. She died peacefully. Whenever Merle Haggard felt Willie’s intense gaze, he turned into a different person. “You’d see Haggard come onto the bus like a caged animal, with that frantic, frenetic look in his eyes, being really uptight with a lot of people,” publicist Evelyn Shriver said. “Then you’d see him sit across from Willie and you’d watch him physically change. When he makes that eye contact with Willie, all of a sudden, everything’s okay. I’ve seen it with so many people that go on the bus. He has that ability to melt your heart and make you feel important.”

  Kris Kristofferson was also under Willie’s influence. “I swear to God, being around Willie is like being around Buddha,” he said. “He gives off these positive attitudes. Next thing you know, you’re acting like him. Things that ruffle the rest of us don’t ruffle him. He’s got almost an Asian calm about him. I don’t think things are going to bowl him over. It probably comes from all those years of scrambling and laughing at it.”

  Willie walked the walk.

  “His creative door is wide open,” Floyd Domino said. “There’s nothing repressed. There’s nothing you can’t talk or write about, whether he feels it or observes it, he understands it. He’s got this transcendence where he understands it, whether he’s lived it or can feel it. Mickey told me about the band meeting this guy at a truck stop in Fort Worth on their way home. He never had a break and he wanted to get his songs recorded. ‘Come on down to the studio,’ Willie said. So the guy got on the bus, rode to Pedernales, and recorded with the band.”

  “He takes things in stride,” said Frank Oakley, who’d known him since 1961, when Faron Young introduced them. “He always says everything’s going to work out like it’s supposed to.”

  “The most important thing is to breathe,” Willie liked to say. “Inhale and exhale and everything else will fall together.”

  The Holy Willie effect was so pervasive it was parodied, riffing off “WWJD?”—What Would Jesus Do?—a popular 1990s catchphrase invoked by people of certain Christian faiths when faced with a moral dilemma. Austin singer-songwriter Bruce Robinson put his spin on the rhetorical with the single “What Would Willie Do?”

  I was lost in trouble and strife, I heard a voice and it changed my life

  And now it’s a brand new day, and I ain’t afraid to say

  You’re not alone when you’re down and out

  And I think you know who I’m talking about

  When I don’t know how I’ll get through

  I ask myself what would Willie do

  What would Willie do, when it’s all gone wrong

  The answer’s in the words of a sad country song

  When you don’t know how to get through,

  You better ask yourself, “What would Willie do?”

  Long ago, you came unto us,

  His words were simple but they went right through us

  And the whole world sang along

  But then they didn’t want to hear his songs

  He was gone and we thought
we’d lost him

  But he just grew his hair and he moved to Austin

  And all of the people smiled

  They came to hear him sing from miles

  And like a miracle all the rednecks and hippies

  From New York City down to Mississippi

  Stood together and raised a brew

  When your skies are gray, “What would Willie do?”

  You know sometimes I wonder when I ain’t gettin’ nowhere

  What would old Willie do when things get too much to bear

  And I see him sittin’ on his lonely old bus

  And he’s got his problems just like any of us

  And I bet he’d just take a deep breath and he’d let ’em all go

  And then he’d take another deep breath and he’d let ’em all go

  And then he’d take another deep breath

  And he’d hold it...

  And then I bet he’d feel hungry in a way that seems strange

  Yes hungry for all the things he just can’t change

  Like the time he passed out in his own bedroom

  And his ex-wife sewed him up in the sheet and she beat him with a broom

  And he forgave her and you think that that’s rough,

  Then the IRS came and they took away all his stuff

  They took his golf course and his recording studio

  And he just went on out and did another show

  So when it’s all comin’ down on you

  You better ask yourself, “What would Willie do?”

  What would Willie do, he travels far with nothin’

  But a song and an old guitar

  And a tour bus and some semi trucks

  And 30 crewmen and a little bit of luck

  He loves all the people, the ugly and the randy

  If you don’t believe it take a look at the family

  And they’ll tell you that it’s true

  So when your skies are gray, “What would Willie do?”

  What would Willie do, he’d take a little time

  And talk to old Rooster as they drive on down the line

  There’s millions down that road

  And with a word he’s gonna lighten their load

  He loves all the people no matter their races

  Hell, he even made a hit country song with Julio Iglesias

  And that ain’t easy to do

  So when it’s all too much, “What would Willie—”

  When the game gets rough, “What would Willie—”

  When they call your bluff, “What would Willie do?”

  Bumper stickers appeared around Austin that read “Matthew, Mark, Luke and Willie.”

  And when the pilgrims had questions, Willie had answers.

  While hanging with Willie, Ray Wylie Hubbard once suddenly realized he’d forgotten a gig. “It’s two-twenty and I’m supposed to be in San Antonio at three,” he told Willie. “What do I do?”

  “Call and tell them you lied,” Willie said automatically, suggesting he’d been in a similar situation before.

  Advice was sometimes offered even if not requested, according to Billy Joe Shaver. “Willie’s always had this charisma, this aura thing around him,” he said. “He doesn’t realize it but he’s always good to be around. When you leave, you feel good. The longer you stay around, the better you feel. I got into drugs and women in Nashville. My family was suffering. I had to leave to save my life. I went down to Houston and went cold turkey. I didn’t know they had these places where you could get relief from drugs. Jesus Christ is all I had. I dropped to a hundred fifty pounds. All I could drink was a diet root beer. That’s all I could keep down. Willie called me up and said, ‘Come on over and play with us.’ He always knew when I was down.”

  Willie didn’t quibble with the praise or portrayals. If anything, he played up to them. As he’d aged, as his hair grew longer, his beard became scruffier, and his nature more iconoclastic, he looked wiser. He could quote the Bible, Edward Cayce, the Dalai Lama, and Roger Miller with equal ease, and he left the distinct impression that he hovered above the fray, laughing and singing, articulating a simple message: Whatever Happens Happens.

  His point of view explained his ability to keep his sunny side up when others around him gave him plenty of reasons to cry in his beer. Waylon’s various ailments, including a quadruple heart bypass, diabetes, emphysema, and carpal tunnel syndrome, took him down for good in 2002. Floyd Tillman passed a year earlier after having a last go-round on record with Willie issued by Heart of Texas Records, a classic country label based in Brady. Geno McCoslin blew his brains out; he’d been diagnosed as bipolar. Jimmy Day went in 1999 from a heart attack following treatment for stomach cancer. David Zettner was taken by a brain aneurysm in 2006. Billy and Bettie Walker were killed in a car wreck on their way back to Nashville, also in 2006. Larry Trader was felled by a stroke and then a heart attack in 2007. (Willie went to the hospital to comfort him, talking to him and telling him jokes for a good twenty minutes before it was brought to his attention that Trader was already dead.) Grady, Bucky, Webb, Faron, Cash, Martha, Billy—all gone. Dee Herrera, the Brown Mexican Bear whose family ran Dallas’s oldest family Mexican restaurant and who showed up for Willie gigs armed with margaritas, was buried in shorts and a Billy Joe Shaver T-shirt, with a Willie Nelson backstage pass attached to a lanyard around his neck and a yellow rose in his hand.

  Willie was philosophical about loss. “You know, there are a lot of younger people than you and I already gone on,” he said with a soft sigh. “It has nothing to do with age. There are those huge disasters that happen on the planet when twenty thousand people get wiped out and there are no age preferences there. We’re all headed that way.”

  His response was to choogle along and stay one step ahead of the game. He was still driven. People tended to forget his passion for moving forward and his competitive streak. “We were in Sydney in the rooftop pool a half hour before showtime, seeing who could stay underwater the longest,” said Mark Rothbaum. “Connie was standing at the side of the pool, looking at her watch, telling us we were going to be late to the show. Willie shouted, ‘Shut up! Time us!’”

  He operated by different rules. One morning, Willie was walking to his bus in a hotel parking lot with Coach Royal, when Coach told him that he’d left a gift from a fan in his hotel room.

  “Willie, you forgot your thing there,” Coach told him.

  Willie kept walking. He later explained himself to Coach. “After they give it, and I receive it, the transaction is over. They enjoyed giving it to me and I enjoyed receiving it. I don’t have to be a slave to all those possessions.”

  He tried to explain that to his Atlanta attorney, Joel Katz, during a meeting in a Los Angeles hotel room where Willie fired him. Joel had scheduled a meeting, wanting to show Willie an estate plan he’d drawn up.

  When Willie realized what Joel had done, he blew up.

  “Why are you doing this? Who asked you to draw this up? I don’t want an estate plan. I didn’t ask for an estate plan. I never want to hear about an estate plan again,” he fumed, stomping out of the room.

  Visions of having lost his most important client swirled around Joel Katz’s head when Willie returned a few minutes later in a calmer state of mind.

  “I know you’re really trying to help, so I apologize,” he said, putting his arm around Joel. “You were trying to do what you thought was right for me, but you’ve got to understand my philosophy of life. I want the people around me to be happy, but I look at life as a roller coaster. When I’m up, I’m up. And when I’m down, I’m down. And I hope when it’s all over, the money runs out just about the same time that I’m through with my life.

  “Let’s not plan. It’s a lot more fun if we don’t,” he said, shooting Joel a wink.

  Shortly after Stardust had been certified triple platinum in 1984, Ray Benson tried to use similar forethought, asking Willie about his corporate structure. “Nothing—it just goes in the Willie Nelson
bank account,” Willie told him, even though the income stream was reaching $30 million a year. “Do you have a will?” Ray asked. “Naw,” Willie replied. “When I die, I just want to watch them all fight it out. May the best attorney win,” he said, laughing.

  It took a while but Ray finally figured out how Willie ticked. Driving down the golf course, Benson told him, “You should take some golf lessons.” Willie stopped the cart and looked him in the eyes. “Let me tell you something, Ray. If there’s a right way to do something, I’ll do it the wrong way first.”

  Looking ahead instead of being in the moment got in the way of making music, doing shows, recording with everyone he ever wanted to record with, playing however he had a hankering to play. “A lot of people make money off of fear and negativity and any way they can feed it to you is to their benefit in a lot of ways,” he said. “You can’t avoid it completely; you have to be open enough that shit doesn’t stick on you, it goes through, because you are gonna be hit and bombarded all the time with negativity. It’s kind of like with martial arts when you go through a target instead of hitting a target. You just let things go on through without trying to stop them or block them.”

  Annie Nelson kept him thinking like that.

  Marriage had been a constant throughout his adult life. As difficult as it had been staying married, he appreciated the institution, no matter how much he strayed. Like with reincarnation, he was determined to get marriage right. His first marriage, to Martha, provided all the conflict and friction he needed to inspire him to write great songs. Where finances and ambition denied Lana, Susie, and Billy a home life that was stable and nurturing, his second marriage, to Shirley, made him want to give his kids from his first marriage a better living situation than the one they’d had. Third wife Connie was a stunning, steadying presence by his side throughout his meteoric ascent while she went the extra mile to bring up their daughters Paula Carlene and Amy as normally as possible. And his fourth marriage, to Annie, gave him the opportunity to raise sons Lukas Autry and Jacob Micah under close to ideal conditions. Annie knew there would be long absences when she married him. “We have been blessed to be able to pay our bills and not have to try to raise children while holding down two and three jobs,” Annie said. Whenever he took a break from the road, he had a wife and kids to go home to.