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In honor of the Texas hero’s 80th Birthday celebration and legendary 4th of July Picnic, we’re celebrating Willie Nelson Week here on DC9 at Night. Check back for interviews, retrospectives and more.
But for a brief stint in Canada and a few years stirring up Nashville, Willie Nelson has spent his whole life living in Texas. He was raised in a small town here and this state has seen him at his lowest and his highest. But as much as Texas has shaped Willie, he has left a particularly outsized mark on the Lone Star State. As we celebrate his 80th birthday and this week’s 40th anniversary of the first 4th of July Picnic, we present Willie Nelson’s Texas.
See also:
–Willie Nelson’s Eight Best Movie Roles
–Willie Nelson Turns 80: A Tribute and Playlist for a Texas Treasure
–The IRS Tapes: How Willie Nelson Taught us To Care About Stuff That Matters, Not Money
Abbott
Willie Nelson was born close to midnight on April 29, 1933, in Abbott, which was founded 60 years prior as a railroad stop. It’s always been a small town — even today, the population hovers around 350. Willie had a quiet childhood there, raised by his grandparents after his parents split. He played running back for the high school football team and joined a polka band.
Waco
For a couple years in the mid-’50s, Willie went to school at Baylor in Waco. He joined the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, putting him in the company of Elvis Presley and Ronald Reagan. But the conventional path to success never would hold much appeal for the grinning guru of outlaw country, and he dropped out after two years.
Pleasanton
Willie has always been a couple steps ahead of the record label executives who’ve tried (and failed) to mold him over the decades. One of the ways he developed his platinum ear for songs was years spent working as a radio DJ. His first of many gigs — including stints at KVAN in Vancouver and KDNT in Denton — was at KBOP in Pleasanton. Today, those call letters belong to an AM weather station in the town.
Fort Worth (1)
Despite a lifelong proclivity for music, Willie didn’t find much financial success early on. His career might have ended for good in 1957, when a string of frustrations and failures led him to quit the music business entirely. He lived in Fort Worth, selling Bibles and vacuum cleaners door-to-door.
Houston
He started writing songs commercially in earnest after he moved to Houston in 1958. He found a spark there, playing in clubs and selling future hits for what seems like a pittance in retrospect. The momentum convinced him to head for the country mecca of Nashville, where he would get a shot at joining the country music establishment of the Grand Ole Opry.
Austin
It is possible that no musician has embodied the spirit of Texas’ unlikely state capital as much as Willie Nelson. He moved to Austin in 1970 and has maintained some kind of residence there ever since, getting high, getting rich and getting politically active. There was no one event or album or show that made Willie Nelson the towering icon he is today; it was through a singularly consistent pursuit of his passions, whether or not they were cool or lucrative (though they often were).
Dripping Springs
A perfect example of that steadfast nature: Willie was invited to play the inaugural (and only) Dripping Springs Reunion, a country music festival conceived in Dallas in 1972 and featuring such luminaries as Earl Scruggs, Kris Kristofferson and Leon Russell. Attendance was poor and the fest was a financial disaster, but Willie liked it so much he brought many of the same people back to the same place the following year, and that’s how his legendary 4th of July Picnics began. He’s still doing them, 40 years later. The 2013 lineup features a mix of up-and-comers and legends, including … Kris Kristofferson and Leon Russell.
Garland
Willie Nelson’s discography numbers in the hundreds when you count all the live albums and collaborations and compilations. His studio output alone is impressive, but one record stands above all the others: Red Headed Stranger, a concept album about a fugitive on the run. He recorded it in Garland and it became his first genuine blockbuster. It’s no longer his best-seller, not by a long shot, but it remains the most unassailable in the ears of critics and fans alike.
Manor
The most well-known of Willie’s philanthropic endeavors is Farm Aid, an organization that raises money to assist family farmers. It started as a concert in 1985, organized by Neil Young, John Mellancamp and Willie, and its second installment was held at the Manor Downs Racetrack.
Lajitas
According to an article in the Austin American-Statesman, Willie spent the end of 2006 shooting a Western/martial arts film in several locations including the West Texas town of Lajitas. It doesn’t look like that one ever came to anything, but you couldn’t cast anyone better than Willie for a Western/martial arts film: His Western credentials, we trust, are in order, and he’s a black belt in tae kwon do.
Sierra Blanca
In November 2010, Willie’s tour bus was pulled over by the U.S. Border Patrol at a checkpoint along Interstate 10 in Sierra Blanca. They found six ounces of weed and he was charged with misdemeanor possession (not for the first time — his first pot bust was in Dallas in 1974). He responded by suggesting the foundation of something called the “Teapot Party,” whose goals should be obvious. You get the sense he was making a jokey aside about the state of politics and our national priorities, but also that he was more than happy to go along with the tiny surge of earnest momentum the “Party” earned.
Fort Worth (2)
This Thursday’s 4th of July Picnic returns to Billy Bob’s Texas, the legendary honky-tonk in the Fort Worth Stockyards. Its lineup is considerably larger than in years past, however, and will spill out into the area around the actual venue. The lineup features the very best of every generation of country music’s weirdos — all here to pay homage to the greatest country weirdo there ever was and ever will be. Happy 80th, Willie Nelson.
