In the early 1970s when Willie Nelson left Nashville and moved back to Texas, not everything for him was coming up chili and beans. He had made a sizable dent in the song publishing houses of country music, writing all-time hits like “Hello Walls,” “Crazy,” “Funny How Time Slips Away” and dozens of others. So his name was pure gold on certain sections of Music Row there. But with the record labels that released Willie Nelson’s fascinating take on the modern Great American Songbook, which is exactly what country music was becoming, he was known as a specialty item. He just didn’t connect with the country music masses, and nobody could quite figure out why. The voice and timing was all his own, and while everyone could agree his recordings didn’t sound like anyone else’s, wasn’t that a good thing? In a town often ruled by herd mentality, it definitely turned out it wasn’t.
In so many wonderful ways, Willie Nelson was a jazz singer and guitarist hoping to pass as a country artist. Finally, enough was enough and off he went to where he came from: the Lone Star state. Having your house burn down in Nashville might have been a cosmic shove, and Nelson wasn’t about to start disagreeing with God. He may have become adept at arguing with soon-to-be ex-wives and disinterested record executives, but the son of Abbott, Texas always knew God really ran the show. So the musician packed up everything he owned, including his guitar Trigger, and headed west. Specifically to Bandera, Texas, a central Texas town known for dude ranches and various local rebels. It was striking distance of Austin, where a freewheeling lifestyle and rambunctious live music scene was fast developing, but far enough away to hopefully be able to keep out of serious trouble.
The early 1970s was becoming a flash point for bohemians of all persuasions in the state capital, precisely because they could find a little bit of freedom in the place they dearly loved, and hopefully not get pulverized by the police or an unforgiving conservative populace. In the spring the beautiful bluebonnets grew everywhere, there was an ample supply of Mexican marijuana trucked up on I-35 from Nuevo Laredo along with some powerful peyote buttons, and a swelling contingent of college students who once they graduated from the University of Texas, they loved Austin so much they couldn’t conceive of ever living anywhere else. There were more cooks and cab drivers there with B.A.s and Ph.Ds than any other city in America. Aging houses ran about a hundred dollars a month and Old Milwaukee beer went for three quarts for a dollar. No wonder San Antonio homeboy Sir Douglas Sahm nicknamed Austin as Groover’s Paradise when he moved there from the Haight Ashbury in 1971. Compared to the Northern California scene, Sahm proselytized, “Austin’s got prettier women and warmer weather.” The race was on.
When Willie Nelson and his family got settled in Bandera, he likely realized he had to still make a living, and looked around the area to find some country & western honky-tonks to play. There was the Broken Spoke in Austin, Big G’s in Round Rock, a spot or two in Dallas/Ft. Worth and Gilley’s in Pasadena. Enough to make grocery and rent money, but not something you could nail a bright future on. That’s where good fortune comes in, because in 1972 Frances “Sissie” Farenthold was running for Governor of Texas. No small feat in a less-than-liberated state. She had amassed a following of labor union veterans and a galvanized youth movement to take on the good ol’ boy establishment that still had a chokehold on Texas politics.
Local rabble rouser James “Big Boy” Medlin was a University of Texas shuttle bus driver when their union went on strike, and knew how to kick up some sand from his days there in the 1960s. So when a big free rally for Farenthold was planned that summer of ’72 in Austin’s massive Zilker Park, Medlin took on booking the musical acts. Fortunately, having grown up in Odessa in West Texas, he also knew a thing or two about country music, and soon enough found himself in Nelson’s South Austin apartment asking if he’d play the concert gratis. “Sure,” said Nelson. “Will anyone be there?” Medlin, being a wounded Vietnam veteran and permanent optimist, replied quickly, “Absolutely. Thousands,” he promised, smiling a smile that could sell surf boards in the Sahara desert.
The day of the rally, it turned out thousands and thousands actually showed up, stoked by the magnitude of their size. It was a gathering of believers, one energized by a show of force for the growing counterculture. And right with them were hardcore country music fans and died-in-denim blue collar working Democrats who might not otherwise have held much truck with all the long-haired hippies running around free everywhere. Still, they knew there was strength in numbers and were dedicated to Sissie Farenthold’s new vision for Texas. In so many ways, it was the birthing of a new brigade, where the two almost opposite factions became one, realizing how much they needed each other to make big change happen.
Our band, Lea Ann & the Bizarros opened the day’s music, and as we stumbled through a set of songs by Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and spirited takes on Pee Wee King’s “Tennessee Waltz” and Claude King’s “Wolverton Mountain,” it was like a brand new universe had opened up for us. We’d never played much before midnight, specializing in dark beer bars with names like Bevo’s Tap Room and the Split Rail. Outdoors on a blazing hot Austin summer day performing to an enthusiastic mostly-sober audience felt like we’d been sprung from Travis County jail for the afternoon. Band members looked around at each other as if to say, “Is this real?” And when the large audience gave us a welcome reception, it felt like Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter, all tied up together. It was also the last time we ever played in sunlight, but it sure was fun while it lasted.
After several other Austin bands performed, a shortish man in a black cowboy hat and beat-up guitar took the stage, backed by bassist Bee Spears and drummer Paul English, who was garbed head-to-toe in black, including a full-on black cape. With a Van Dyke beard and menacing look, I figured him a double for the devil himself. Joining them on fiddle was Sweet Mary Egan from local favorites Greezy Wheels. Some of us backstage looked at each other with inquisitive expressions which said, “Who is this man?” We really didn’t know. Country music hadn’t invaded our young urban mentalities yet, but it sure would by the end of that day.
Willie Nelson started with “Hello Walls,” and then “Funny How Time Slips Away.” After that came a rolling set of songs that just kept getting better and better. All the hippies looked at each other, with their mouths hung open. How can one man write so many incredible originals? It was truly mind-blowing. And not only for the audience, but from the looks of it for Nelson himself. He would stare out at the audience with a surprised look on his handsome face, as if to say, “Who are all these young long-haired kids? And why are they screaming and shouting so loud after every song?” It was like his future life was flashing before him, pointing a way to a new coalition of fans drawn from all quarters of Americans. You could almost see a thought bubble forming above Nelson’s cowboy hat that read, “Wow! I can find a new life here, pulling all the straights and hippies together. If they don’t kill each other in the bars, there might just be a future in this.” Little did he know then, but he was giving birth that very day to the future groundswell movement which would come to be known by names like “redneck rock” and “cosmic cowboy” within the year. Right then, under the sweltering sun in Zilker Park, history was being made.
The set had a surprising end for me when Willie Nelson launched into “Night Life.” I was breathless listening to him play one of my very favorite B.B. King recordings, one so overwhelming it had become a personal theme song during my teen-aged years in Houston, with it’s chorus, “That nightlife, it ain’t no good life, but it’s my life.” Yes sir. When I turned to Medlin to express astonishment that this country singer who I really didn’t know was playing a song by my very own blues hero, he just looked at me with pity in his eyes and said, “That’s Nelson’s song you citified fool.” “No way,” I replied. “I’ll bet you five dollars B.B. King wrote it.” When I got home that night and looked at my King album, only to see Willie Nelson’s name in tiny type under the song title as the songwriter, I had to admit it’s the best five dollars I ever spent. It opened my eyes to an all-time artist that would become a personal guiding light for the next near-50 years.
After the Zilker Park show, Willie Nelson soon took a small ride over to the Armadillo World Headquarters and booked a night that officially launched his ascent into the stratosphere in Austin. Wherever he performed it was like a private party for hundreds of people. There was something about Nelson’s hard-won wisdom in his music that literally appealed to everyone. While beer sales went through the ceiling at the Armadillo, there were never any fights or even harsh words when Nelson appeared. He was like a musical prince of peace for all of us, pointing to that wide-open space where everyone could celebrate the commonality of being alive and grateful in a place of warm-blooded joy. Dozens and dozens of shows went by, and the wave started growing by the month. In 1974 he held his first Fourth of July picnic, and it became official: Texas had a new cosmic leader and it was man who not only sang the truth, he lived it.
By then I was writing about music at the brand new Austin Sun weekly newspaper, and my good friend Bill Bell stopped by one lazy afternoon with a plain black cassette tape. Nothing was written on it. Bell had become the go-to silversmith for Austin’s burgeoning musician scene, and also was now friends with Willie Nelson. “This is Willie’s new album,” he told me. “He just recorded it up in Garland and I thought you might want to review it.” I jumped at the chance, and listened to the cassette that day at work on a small portable player. While it was good, it also sounded somewhat unfinished. There weren’t many instruments on it, and most of the songs were slow-paced and super introspective. With a deadline of the next morning, I turned in a respectful review that evening, yet far from the rave I had hoped it could be. But the recording was the recording and I couldn’t write what I didn’t hear. Going home that night I took the cassette with me, and after I had herbalized myself with a thin joint, listened again, just for kicks. Immediately I couldn’t move. I had never heard a country album like this before. Hell, it wasn’t even country. It was like the music of the spheres had found its way onto Willie Nelson’s album, and shared the secrets of the universe with all of us. Yes, it was strong marijuana, but still, I had never heard anything like it.
My mission was clear: I had to go back to the Sun’s office, sneak in through an unlocked window and write a new review. There was no other option. Luckily, I was also the paper’s typesetter, so I got inside, fired up the typesetting machine and wrote about as glowing a review as I’ve ever done. The album deserved no less. I tore the old type off the galley, pasted down my new column and left the building relieved that I hadn’t made a massive mistake. The next day when the paper came back from the printer, my rave review of RED HEADED STRANGER was right where it belonged. The album had not been released yet, and Bill Bell later told me it was the first review Willie Nelson had read of it. I had to smile a secret smile, thank my lucky stars I’d been able to hear what Nelson had created on the album that really launched his career and gotten my feelings into print. I knew that whatever cosmic forces truly control our lives had tipped in my direction then, and have always made a gracious nod to whatever allowed me to hear the undeniable beauty of the album in the nick of time.
Before you could say Luckenbach, Texas, it wasn’t long before the whole world had turned faithfully towards the vast gifts of Willie Nelson. A musical movement had taken glorious hold, and his career became a magic carpet ride of eternal emotions and the spirit of the good. The man from tiny Abbott, Texas has taught us that with heightened spirits and kind hearts there is no end to what we can be. Also, by holding strong to each other and shining our love lights whenever and wherever we can, this wondrous life is ours for the living. Even when our blue eyes are crying in the rain.
Bill Bentley