From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Tue Apr 30, 2002  2:10 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Willie Nelson

WILLIE NELSON (By Shaun Mather)

Born Willie Hugh Nelson, 30 April 1933, Fort Worth, Texas

Willie Nelson is one of the few country singers to become a household name
around the world, along with perhaps Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton and Kenny
Rogers. To call Willie just country is ignoring his many experiments with
other-wordly styles, but if I can call Kenny Rogers country, I can call
anybody country. Raised by his grandparents, he started playing guitar and
writing songs when he was seven. After leaving the Air Force in 1954 he
became a country DJ in Fort Worth and made a small record two years later in
Vancouver, Washington. He sold a composition, Family Bible, for $50 and
watched it become a hit for Claude Gray. The experience taught him many
lessons and also landed him a publishing contract with Pamper Music,
part-owned by Ray Price who cut Willie's Night Life and hired him as a bass
player for his Cherokee Cowboys. Further songwriting successes came with
Hello Walls (Faron Young), Funny How Time Slips Away (Billy Walker) and
Crazy (Patsy Cline). He signed with Liberty Records and a couple of duets
with his wife Shirley Collie (Willingly and Touch Me), made it into the country
Top 10. When Liberty closed its country division in 1964, Willie moved to
RCA and became a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Numerous minor hits
followed but by 1972, he'd become disillusioned and moved back to Austin,
Texas, to take up pig farming. He began performing live again and was snapped
up by Atlantic for whom he cut Shotgun Willie in '73 and Phases And Stages a
year later. His career really took off in '75 when he joined Columbia and
recorded the classic concept album, The Red Headed Stranger, which spawned
the hugely successful single, Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain. RCA jumped on
the bandwagon and released his earlier stuff together with tracks by Waylon
Jennings, Tompall Glaser and Jessi Colter, under the insightful heading
"Wanted - The Outlaws". Nelson's new brand of music and rock lifestyle,
together with that of Jennings became known as the Outlaw Movement. They
dueted on the CMA award-winning Good Hearted Woman, and in '78 did an album
together, Waylon and Willie which included another classic, Mama Don't Let
Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys. That same year he surprised everyone with
an orchestrated album of standards. The result was Stardust, an album that
sold 4 million copies and spent nearly ten years on the album charts. He
tried his luck in Hollywood where he starred in Electric Horseman and On The
Road Again, which featured the hit single On The Road Again. The '80's saw
more projects with Jennings plus a duet album with Merle Haggard (Poncho
And Lefty) and a worldwide hit with Julio Iglesias (To All The Girls I've Loved
Before). He starred with Jennings, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson as
the Highwayman and in 1985, he started Farm Aid, an annual concert that
provides aid for cash-strapped farmers. At the start of the '90's he took
three years to pay of $16.7 million to the IRS and in '93 was inducted into
the Country Music Hall of Fame. He continues to produce the unexpected and
recent highlight albums have included Spirit and Milk Cow Blues. A hero of
the working man, Willie is an American institution who goes from strength to
strength.

Official website: http://www.willienelson.com/
There is a 3 CD box-set on Sony (Revolutions Of Time : The Journey 1975-1993)
for those who want an overview, but since many of Willie's LP's are concept
albums, you need the individual albums to do him justice.