Willie Nelson

by Graeme Thomson

  Connie Nelson: I never remember Willie trying to make it big: ‘I’m going to be the next pop star.’ Never. I never ever saw that side of him. I don’t think there was ever that side of him. He honestly just wanted to make his music, he never vocalised that he wanted to make it big. It was about selling more records and making a good living.

  Nelson had really become a national institution first and an innovative musician second; the embodiment of the spirits of Bob Wills, Nat King Cole, Zebulon Walton, Jesse James and Burt Reynolds fused together. He was tracing wild curves on the map: he would show up on everything from Bob Hope’s Pink Panther Thanksgiving Gala to Miami Vice and Saturday Night Live. He toured Japan for the first time and struggled with the language barrier and cultural differences; he was scheduled to play a series of shows with Frank Sinatra at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas in June 1984, a true thrill for the boy from Abbott, but the edge was taken off the entire event when Sinatra could only fulfil one night before pulling out with a throat problem, while Nelson attracted criticism for – uncharacteristically – crossing a picket line to perform; in early 1985 he appeared alongside the rest of America’s A-list singers on the USA For Africa single, ‘We Are The World’, the rather tepid response to Band Aid’s ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ A few weeks later he turned up to play at the Oscars. He had become an industry, a one-man mass market. A single name would suffice: ‘Willie’.

  And still the money was rolling in, and still the money was pouring out. By the mid-80s his average gross annual income was estimated conservatively at around $10 million, including royalties from his own songs, income from his albums and tour revenue. His expenses were monumental, however. The daily payroll for the thirty-strong crew on the road was $12,000, plus at least the same again in expenses and hotel rooms. The lowest paid ‘member of staff’ was on a minimum of $40,000, literally for bringing the beers to the table and making the coffee. An average of 150 shows a year – it was often more – amounted to annual tour overheads of at least $5million, and that wasn’t including the hundreds of people – from Mark Rothbaum and his office to recording engineers and golf club staff, from script writers and interior designers to business partners and marijuana suppliers and those who did ‘chores’ for him of an unspecified nature – who sent their bills for Nelson to pay. It was mostly dealt with in cash, which would explain why there was an Uzi sub-machine gun on the bus. Mix in the hand-outs, charity requests, Connie and the kids – all the kids – and other family members, and the cost started adding up.

  In 1983 he began leasing a private seven-seater Lear Jet – ‘AirWillie’ – at an annual cost of $400,000, to take him from film set to concert hall to home to awards show and back again. He once landed the plane because Ray Price wanted to piss on terra firma, not in the cramped toilet. That cost over $2,000. He later bought the Lear outright for $1.7 million, but it surely could have been only a minor surprise to him when the day arrived when it had to be sold. AirWillie was leaking fuel. From his vantage point high up in the clouds it was hard to tell, but financially, commercially, creatively, he was already starting to lose altitude.

  IT WILL HAVE TO BE SOLVED SPIRITUALLY

  WILLIE NELSON IS talking about politics.

  He has been holding the cold, unlit joint in his right hand for about ten minutes. He may have forgotten it is even there.

  Politics is almost indistinguishable from personality for him. If he gets a good feeling about someone he will be inclined to back them, especially if they have empathy for the common man. ‘I was supportive of President Carter,’ he recalls. ‘I was supportive of Dennis Kucinich when he was running in the Democratic election. So yeah, I’ve had my guys that I’ve supported.’

  He is an American. It defines everything he does. He is most in touch with the soil beneath his feet and the people who live on it and with it. Like his music, his beliefs are unsuited to the grand gesture or the concerns of the few.

  He favours small changes that make a difference to real people. His new pet project is Biodiesel, an alternative fuel source derived from vegetable oils. He loves it: farmers can grow the plants year after year which can then be turned into fuel.

  Now even his own tour bus runs on soy extract. He calls it BioWillie.

  ‘I’ve been involved in a lot of things that will keep us from being dependent on foreign energy,’ he says. ‘Biodiesel is a great one, because farmers can grow it and truckers can get immediate use from it. But there’s also solar and hydrogen, all different things you can do in addition to petro-chemicals, which are quickly diminishing. There has to be thought about what’s going to replace it. Biodiesel is a natural replacement because it’s something the farmers can grow.’

  He is, he says, still aware of the bigger picture. He is still a politically engaged man. ‘Yeah, I think so. I still like and dislike a lot of things that are going on.’

  He pauses. He is thinking of an example. ‘I think the war in Iraq is wrong. That’s wrong. Unfortunately, it’s not going to be solved politically. It will have to be solved spiritually.’

  The room is silent for a few seconds. A little rain is falling outside. The television is turned off but its black, lifeless screen is concealing any number of atrocities throughout the world. A spiritual solution seems a long way away.

  ‘Maybe not so far,’ he says softly. ‘Maybe not so far.’

  11. 1985–1990

  DURING HIS NERVY, somewhat shambolic turn with Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards at the Live Aid concert in Philadelphia on 13 July 1985, Bob Dylan had mumbled, ‘I’d just like to say I hope some of the money that’s raised for the people in Africa, maybe they could take just a little bit of it – maybe one or two million maybe – and use it, say, to pay the mortgages on some of the farms . . . the farmers here owe to the banks.’ Given that he was the closing act at a concert designed to help raise funds for the millions who were currently starving to death in Africa, it struck many as a peculiarly insensitive, ill-judged and poorly expressed sentiment. Certainly, Live Aid organiser Bob Geldof was watching Dylan on television from Britain with his head in his hands, and not just because ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ was out of tune.

  Bob Geldof: I wasn’t really pissed off, but I just thought it was very American – not getting the plot. They were foreclosing on the farms in the mid-West, but Dylan should have understood the greater context in which Live Aid happened. I was in despair.

  Also looking in from somewhere out on the road was Willie Nelson, who found himself nodding in agreement with Dylan. Nelson had already commented to Ray Charles at the recording of ‘We Are The World’ earlier in the year that famine relief was of course all well and good, but what about their own people? It was a question he was not alone in asking at the time. For all his universal mind, Nelson often displays a very local frame of reference, well attuned to the mood of the American people. He hadn’t played at Live Aid but its ability to generate both awareness and funds had inspired him and confirmed, once again, that nothing could quite beat music for bringing people together. Farming was a cause he could easily get passionate about and there was no question that the grievances hesitantly outlined by Dylan were legitimate in a national context, if rather secondary weighed up against the totality of the world’s evils.

  It was the Reagan era and farms were being foreclosed all over America, ‘the first symptom of a widespread and systemic failure of farm policy to keep family farmers on the land,’ according to Farm Aid’s mission statement. At heart, Nelson’s fledgling Farm Aid organisation was a grass roots movement for the working man, squarely aimed at the small family farmer whose livelihood was being threatened by increased industrialisation and the onset of globalisation. In essence, he was paying homage to the roots of country music itself, to the very soil that he came from. Farm Aid harkened back to an idyllic rural America, the one of his youth, where small community banks would be sympathetic to the troubles its own people were experiencing. Now, if a farmer who wanted to run with
the times couldn’t keep up his loan payments he was being evicted from the land which gave him the means to survive. Family farms were disappearing and a whole way of life and livelihood was going with it. It was the erosion of old-time values: first the farmer, then the local store, then the service station across the street. Nelson wanted to do something to try and alleviate the immediate discomfort and pain of at least some of the individuals and families who were suffering the most. They were, after all, his audience.

  Willie Nelson: The family farmer is a small farmer who loves the land. We can’t take that away from him. Farmers are still not getting enough money for their product and are still going out of business at the rate of several thousand per month. Something has got to be done.1

  Within a month of Live Aid, Nelson had rung around his farmer friends to take the temperature on the ground and picked up the baton, creating the seed of the idea for a Farm Aid benefit concert. Recognising the need for some political muscle, he joined forces with the Governor of Illinois, James Thompson. Thompson was an old friend: he booked Nelson each year to play the Illinois State Fair and even had it written into the contract that he would get to eat chilli on the bus with him. He was happy to help. Nelson hit the phones: Neil Young, Waylon Jennings, John Cougar Mellancamp. Bob Dylan could hardly say no. The whole event was conceived, announced and organised within a six-week time span; the show was hastily arranged for 22 September in Champaign, Illinois, right in the heartlands of the farming community. Everything seemed to happen simultaneously: acts were added to the bill daily, while Nelson set up a board with Governor Thompson and like-minded musicians such as Mellancamp and Young, both of whom hailed from farming communities. There was heavy presence from the Nelson camp: Paul English sat on the panel as, in time, did Nelson’s daughter Lana, manager Mark Rothbaum, and road manager David Anderson.

  They admitted to being unsure exactly how the money was going to be used. That detail would be pondered later. Nelson was in at the sharp end; hands on. He met farmer groups to discuss how to distribute the funds, talked to politicians from several states, corralled the acts. It was ultimately decided that he would not only be the public face and central voice of Farm Aid, but that he would be responsible for the distribution of the money, signing every cheque that went out. It was an immense vote of trust, confirmation that he was the perfect figure to be at the head of the movement. It also meant that Farm Aid became, as had Band Aid for Geldof, a much bigger commitment and a heavier load than he had ever envisaged. But he stayed the course.

  The September concert was a genuine event. By the time the day arrived the bill had undergone a dozen revisions and swelled to include such rock luminaries as Lou Reed, Randy Newman, Bon Jovi, the Beach Boys, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, as well as the cream of the country establishment: George Jones, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Charley Pride, Loretta Lynn and Glen Campbell. It was in many ways a more impressive and all-encompassing line-up than the US leg of Live Aid itself. Nelson introduced it on the day with the pointed words: ‘Welcome to Farm Aid – the concert for America.’

  The 78,000 tickets had sold out in three days, and despite the drizzle and gusting winds the event was a success, the crowd comprised of an unusual mix of college students, rock fans and farmers. Nelson, naturally, opened the show, accompanied by Neil Young on the downbeat ‘Are There Any More Real Cowboys Anywhere?’. Fourteen hours later he closed alone with a set including ‘On The Road Again’, ‘Always On My Mind’, and the inevitable ‘Whiskey River’. As the fans exited, fireworks lit up the sky and a tape played ‘America The Beautiful’. During the concert pledges rolled in on the toll-free phone line: 1–800 FARM AID.

  In total, Farm Aid 1985 raised around $7m. Ticket sales for the concert were responsible for $1.3m, and the rest came from $3m in pledges and corporate donations and roughly the same amount in broadcast rights. There was some surprise at the relative paucity of the figure – euphoric pre-concert estimates had ranged from $30m to $50m – but it was academic in many ways. The US farm debt in 1985 was $212 billion, accruing interest at a rate of $58m per day. It was an insurmountable sum. Indeed, there was criticism from the American Agriculture Movement and others along the lines that the proceeds of the concert were ‘not even a drop in the bucket’ of what was required, but it’s hard to imagine who or what could have dented a hole in a debt of that magnitude. The concert certainly raised consciousness – it was broadcast live and attracted huge amounts of press coverage – and succeeded in helping those most in need with immediate aid. Nelson was unapologetic.

  Willie Nelson: Be idealistic. Never mind if people call you an idiot. Just because your idealism can’t instantly cure all the ills in the world, don’t be cynical about it. Be idealistic and take a step forward.2

  And the money did reach some of the most needy. The first cheque, written the day after the concert, sent $100,000 to the National Council of Churches for distribution to emergency food pantries serving farmers. A $25,000 donation to the League of Rural Voters was cancelled when it was suggested that monies given to a lobbying group amounted to a political donation from an avowed apolitical group; Nelson replaced it with $11,700 from his own pocket and added that he was ‘angry that our government isn’t doing enough’, just to make the point. The business side of the Farm Aid organisation found its feet very much through trial and error, but soon the money started pouring out of the office in leafy Connecticut to the agricultural heartlands: grants; the building of an emergency help network, including a telephone helpline; legal aid; food aid; scholarships; education programmes. And it has endured. At the press conference at the end of the first Farm Aid concert Nelson promised ‘this is just the beginning’. He has kept his word, through the concert’s insurance problems, general compassion fatigue, not to mention his own personal traumas.

  Farm Aid II, held in Texas on 4 July 1986 in conjunction with Nelson’s annual picnic, was both less successful financially and less gripping as a musical event. Falling foul of the curse of the sequel, the event raised a disappointing $1.3 million, although it did feature a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Nelson singing Aerosmith’s ‘Smokin’ In The Boy’s Room’ with Mötley Crüe’s Vince Neil. There has been a concert almost every year since, and although it has inevitably slipped down the media agenda and has never again attracted the line-up or level of donations of the inaugural concert, the organisation has been a quiet success and remains an important strand of Nelson’s legacy. Prior to Farm Aid III in 1987, the office issued its report, led by its director Carolyn Mugar, outlining its commitment to the long-term alleviation of farmer’s troubles. Nelson also visited Congress – resplendent in black baseball cap, black T-shirt and white sneakers – to reprimand a Senate agricultural subcommittee over its lack of action, and has personally contacted countless farm families who turned to Farm Aid for assistance. He would step outside the box as well: in 1989 he headlined a benefit for Dixon Terry, a farmer from Iowa and president of the Family Farm Coalition who was killed by lightning, leaving his family $300,000 in debt, and has consistently rallied the cause in all manner of ways.

  It has not always been a fashionable cause, but he has remained involved and in the loop throughout, despite the fact that Farm Aid has survived far longer than he ever imagined. Between 1985 and 2004 the concerts raised a total of $26,739,467, and $21,510,477 has been spent on a whole raft of programmes. It employs five full-time members of staff and its remit has widened, to include the promotion of local, healthy produce; emergency relief for farmers hit by hurricane Katrina; and measures to curb and control the long-term effects of everything from the depletion of soil deposits and genetic engineering to environmental damage. But in many ways, Farm Aid’s greatest legacy has been the countless individuals it has helped at the frontline of severe hardship. The larger issues have not gone away: there are ever decreasing numbers of farms in America and if anything the underlying problems have only got worse.

  Willie Nelson: The idea is to make people
aware of the issue, maybe to buy the farmers a little time until long-term answers to their problems can be found. What we really want to do is change the attitude of the average American towards their ham and eggs in the morning.3

  He said these words in 1985, but they still hold true today.

  He was due some fun and games. He went off to film Stagecoach in New Mexico with his buddies Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings at the beginning of 1986. He had already wrapped up filming the previous summer on his beloved pet project Red Headed Stranger, made for under $3 million, having chipped away at the script with his friend Bill Witliff over the years. The glory days of his Universal film contract – which had set aside a budget of $13.5m for Red Headed Stranger – were gone: Nelson shot the movie in 39 days at the Western town on his ranch in Austin, and also co-produced and co-financed the project. Paul English and Bee Spears had roles. Darrell Royal raised funds. It did not prove to be a wise investment. The film bombed and was described in the Washington Post as ‘vintage Willie-ism. Nicely produced, stiffly acted and every twist of the interminable plot telegraphed well in advance. Not recommended.’