Heartbreaking News:Willie Nelson a country singer-songwriter known for hit songs like “Crazy” and “On the Road Again.” Just Passed Away age 92..
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
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.
With their grandparents, Willie and Bobbie attended their town’s small Methodist church, where they received their earliest exposure to music. Their loving grandparents had a musical background and Nelson has described them as “dedicated musical teachers.” They encouraged Willie and his sister to play and learn, going so far as to order musical books from Chicago.
Nelson got his first guitar at the age of six — mere months prior to the death of his beloved grandfather — and he began writing his own poetry and early musical compositions shortly thereafter. His famous gospel song “Family Bible” draws from his early exposure to religious music. He sold the song to his friend Paul Buskirk, a guitar teacher, for $50 in 1959.
Though family and faith were and remain top priorities for Nelson, in his 2015 memoir It’s a Long Story: My Life, the self-described guitar “picker” recalls that church “did not calm my restless and rambunctious soul. … Mama Nelson had to tether toddler Willie to a pole in the yard to keep him from wandering off. Don’t know where I’d have gone if I could have, but I had the itch early on–the itch to look beyond the end of the road.”
A few years later, he started playing his first professional gigs with a local polka band. A job at odds with his Christian upbringing. “I was ten, a member in good standing of the Methodist Church and a devoted grandson,” Nelson writes. “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.”
In 1947 Nelson joined the gospel group Bud Fletcher and the Texans, which already featured Bobbie on piano. He continued to attend school and lettered in numerous sports. The band played the local club circuit for the next few years and Bobbie and Bud Fletcher married. It was during this time Nelson first appeared on local radio.
Air Force
After graduating from Abbott High School in 1950, Nelson enlisted in the United States Air Force and first stationed at Lackland in San Antonio. The Korean War was raging but his military career was short-lived when persistent back problems from previous injuries led to a medical discharge nine months later.
Unsure of where to turn next, Nelson briefly enrolled in a farming program at Baylor University. While pursuing his studies, he took odd jobs to make ends meet, including selling encyclopedias door to door. But Nelson had not lost his passion for music, which he pursued by working as a disc jockey for various radio stations.
Early Songs: “Night Life,” “Crazy,” “Hello Walls”
Nelson moved around over the next few years, regularly playing gigs at local clubs and honing his songwriting craft. It was during this period that Nelson penned some of his finest early work, including “Night Life,” “Crazy” and “Funny How Time Slips Away.”
In 1960, Nelson settled in the country music capital of Nashville, Tennessee, where he found a job as a songwriter for Pamper Music, earning a salary of around $50 a week. The following year, two of Nelson’s creations became hits for other artists — Faron Young’s version of “Hello Walls” reached No. 1 on the country charts and sold two million copies. Patsy Cline’s legendary rendition of “Crazy” became a Top 10 hit on both country and pop. Two years later, Ray Price’s recording of his “Night Life” was also a Top 40 country hit.
