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Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2008 > March > 05 > Entry
Catching up with Willie before the rodeo
In an impromptu interview with Willie Nelson before his Texas Star and Rodeo show Tuesday, we learned ….
WILLIE AND WYNTON: Nelson used some time before the show on Tuesday to show some guests on the bus a rough cut of the forthcoming DVD (and album) project featuring himself and Wynton Marsalis live at Lincoln Center. The duo, accompanied by Family Band member Mickey Raphael on harmonica, along with Marsalis’ quintet, recorded four performances at Jazz At Lincoln Center’s Allen Room on Jan. 12 and 13. The album/DVD project is scheduled for a fall release. Watching the video, Nelson sang along softly to “Basin St. Blues” and “Bright Lights, Big City” as the performances played onscreen.
Here’s a link to Sony Legacy, which is planning a huge Willie box set for release on April 1, the kick-off to a year-long celebration by the label.
A PEACEFUL SOLUTION: Nelson has a new Web site dedicated to the Willie Nelson Peace Research Institute, an entity dating back to at least April 2007 (see site for archives). The site seems to be a clearinghouse and forum for political and ecological activists — as well as for Willie himself of course. Their mission statement describes WNPRI as believing “in the promise of Peace on Earth in our lifetime as the birthright of our global human family.”
Nelson has written a song, “Peaceful Solution,” which is posted on the site, along with an invitation for anyone to download and/or record their own version of the tune — even rewrite it as they see fit. So far, he noted on the bus, upwards of 150 people have either recorded the song or filmed videos, including his 6-year-old great-grandson Zack, who sang the song as a school project. Zack joined Willie and the band onstage at the Star of Texas Fair and Rodeo Tuesday night to sing along on the tune, the closing number of the set.
Nelson said he and his daughter Amy wrote the song at 3 in the morning on board Nelson’s bus on the way to the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival (and when was the last time you heard a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame say, “…and we were on our way to Coachella”?!).
END OF AN ERA, GUITAR-STRAP WISE: For the first time in my experience (except for when Trigger was in hiding after the IRS seizures of Willie’s property), Nelson wasn’t wearing his famous woven red-white-and-blue guitar strap on stage. The distinctive item — for decades as much a part of his persona as his bandana or long hair — looped around his neck, rather than over the shoulder as most straps do.
But Tuesday night, he was playing Trigger with a plain leather strap. Poodie Locke, Nelson’s longtime stage manager, said the woven strap had begun hurting his neck. “We had to buy him the softest (new) strap we could find,” Locke said.
(Photo by Jay Janner/AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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By Johnny Hughes
March 6, 2008 6:22 PM | Link to this
Every year is a great year for Willie, but 2008 will be even greater. He will turn seventy-five. A new biography, Willie Nelson: An Epic Life by Joe Nick Patoski, will be out next month. Patoski did over 100 interviews with Willie, his family, his band,folks who knew him growing up in Abbott, Texas, and many others.