Willie Hugh Nelson was born during the great depression on April 30, 1933 in the small town of Abbot, Texas. He and his sister were raised by their Grandparents, because his parents got divorced at a very young age. Willie and his sister came to love country music so their grandparents made a deal with Willie and his sister that each child was allowed to select an instrument to learn. Willie Nelson chose the guitar and his sister chose the piano. Nelson took a liking to the guitar very early on. He wrote his first song and gave his first public performance at age seven. He also worked his first professional gig at a local dance when he was ten years old. The year after Willie had joined his first band, and during high school, he toured around locally with the Bohemian Polka as their lead singer and guitar player. Once Nelson graduated from high school he joined the air force for a brief moment of time, then he was sent home because he had problems with his back. After all this happened Nelson enrolled in Baylor University for a couple of years, then dropped out because his country music career was about to take off.
In his early 20’s he worked at a Texas radio station as a DJ, and he also even worked a couple years as a Bible salesman. Later on Nelson decided that he needed to leave Texas, so he moved to Washington to start writing songs. After he wrote a couple songs, the Pamper Music company signed him and let him play as a bassist in Ray Price’s band. Once Nelson had enough experience he decided to start recording his own albums. He recorded his album “And Then I Wrote” in 1962. The album had great success; in fact it had so much success that a short ten years later Nelson was able to retire and move to Austin, Texas. But just shortly after he had retired there was an extreme rise in Hippie music that inspired Nelson to come out of retirement and start performing and recording again. Nelson turned to a subgenre of country music called outlaw country shortly after he signed a big contract with Atlantic Records in 1973. Nelson made 2 great albums during that time; Phases and Stages, and Shotgun Willie. The deal did not work out between Nelson and Atlantic Records, so he switched over to Columbia Records where he recorded his best album ever some say; Red Headed Stranger. After this he teamed up with a team of talented country music stars such as Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, and Waylon Jennings. Also while his country music career was in his prime, Nelson had been playing small roles in movies and TV shows. Nelson was on top of the world at this point, but bad news came in swiftly. Nelson had not paid any taxes over his career, so he owed 32,000,000 dollars to the IRS. All of Nelson’s valuables had to be given to the IRS so that his debt would be burned, and he had to record 2 more albums with all of the profits going straight to the IRS. After all of this Nelson did not want to lose everything that he had worked for, So during the 90’s and 2000’s Nelson did not stop touring and producing new albums in efforts to keep the profits coming in. Nelson ventured into new genres such as folk, reggae, blues, and jazz during the late 90’s and early 2000’s which he had mixed reviews on.
Many
people say that Willie Nelson not paying his taxes was the best thing that had
ever happened to him. Not paying taxes made Nelson recorded many more albums than
he would have if he got to keep all his money and not having to sell all his
assets to the IRS. Also it made Nelson try much harder to make better country
music and not be able to retire earlier than his time. Today Nelson is a
liberal activist and he is on the co-chair of the advisory board of the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. In addition, Nelson also owns the brand Willie Nelson
Biodiesel. Nelson is also a notable chairman of the Advisory
Board of the Texas Music Project, the official music charity of the state of
Texas. Nelson has acted in over 30 films and Tv shows, and co-authored many books. Today
Willie Nelson is still touring at 79 years old. He has 2 sons and 4 daughters
who are all involved in the music industry.
Hartright, John. "Willie
Nelson." NNDB. N.p., 04/13/2003.
Web. 30 Sep 2012. <http://www.nndb.com/people/636/0000225670/>
Like you said, I thought much of our information was very similar in the background aspect but I found it interesting that we went in serperate directions in terms of focus. I liked how you emphasized the idea that the IRS seizure of Willie's assets was actually a key factor in Willie becoming as succussful as he did. One area I think you could focus more on in your next post is the idea of "outlaw country." You could talk about what it is, what is sounds like, who the audience is, and why Willie Nelson was important to this genre or fits the outlaw role. Also in your next post you could shift your focus from biographical information and try to incorportate the idea of authenticity in Willie's music and wether or not he embodies the idea. Also, try to explain why Willie is the "true country artist." Overall I thought your article was extremely easy to read and very interesting and I thought you did a great job.
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