What Would Willie Do

“He’s an interesting guy, but just about impossible to pin down.” That’s Jonathan Yardley on the now 75-year-old Willie Nelson. Yardley reviewed the new Nelson biography by Joe Nick Patoski in the Washington Post last weekend and found the book, if not Nelson, lacking.

It’s possible that someday a true biography of him will be written, one that discriminates between what is and is not important in his life, that resists the temptations of list-making and tries to dig into the innermost core of this admittedly highly elusive man. Patoski’s book will be an invaluable resource for the person who writes that biography, and not merely because it contains so much ill-digested information. Patoski knows a lot about Nelson’s music and writes about it with sympathy and understanding. If he doesn’t discriminate among factoids, he does discriminate among Nelson’s songs and recordings, and at times his insights are keen. Certainly he is right to pinpoint “Spirit,” Nelson’s superb album of 1996, as a “dramatic shift” in Nelson’s career, taking him back to the simple roots of country music and emphasizing his remarkable guitar playing as well as the “distinctive” piano of his sister Bobbie. “Spirit” is nothing less than a small American masterpiece.

Boy, do I agree about Spirit. Here’s a taste.

• Your Memory Won’t Die in My Grave – Willie Nelson [Mp3]

And here’s one of my all-time favorites, a tribute to Nelson that treats him as he deserves to be treated: as a messiah.

• What Would Willie Do – Bruce Robison [Mp3]

IMAGE: Willie Nelson, Luck Ranch, Spicewood, Texas, 2001 by Annie Leibovitz

Comments

[Richard]

I don't agree with Yardley on much, but I also agree on Spirit. A great record.

[Brendan Wolfe]

Yeah, that's exactly how I felt.

[Patrick]

Great song. Willie gave an interesting interview recently linked below, in which he basically said he believed what happened on 911 to be very different from what told by the authorities and their lackeys, the mainstream press.
"How naive are we - what do they think we'll go for?," asked Nelson, pointing out that his doubts began on the very day of 9/11.

"I saw one fall and it was just so symmetrical, I said wait a minute I just saw that last week at the casino in Las Vegas and you see these implosions all the time and the next one fell and I said hell there's another one - and they're trying to tell me that an airplane did it and I can't go along with that," said Nelson.

"What does it take for us to realize we're having the wool pulled over our eyes one more time?"

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/february2008/020408_towers_imploded.htm

[Patrick]

And so doth speak the messiah, Willie, who is obviously no idiot.

[Brendan Wolfe]

Hey, when I said that Willie was a messiah, I merely meant that he died for my sins and the sins of the world, only to rise again. I didn't mean to imply that he was an authority on 9/11.

[Patrick]

Though Willie might, hopefully if he's the kind of man he appears to be, dispute this 'authority' necessity. Al it takes is a willingness to be faithful to our intelligence to see Willie's viewpoint is the only one consistent with the facts. I see no reason to deny the obvious so as to believe the garbage peddled by teh Dick Cheneys of this world, oh so conveniently justifying exactly the kinds of actions at home & abroad they wanted to embark upon.

Though to further quibble, Willie hasn't died for your sins quite yet. Life in the old dog.