Willie Nelson...

Willie Hugh Nelson was born in Texas in 1939, and he’s still performing. As a boy, he was reared by his grandparents because his parents split up during his infancy.  His mother left and his father remarried.  He and his sister Bobbie lived with their grandparents but Willie dreamed of escaping from the poverty and isolation of life in the South at the time.

He started to play country music as a kid, writing songs and playing in a band. He went to High school and did time in the American Air force, but left due to health problems.  After that, he went to University but dropped out after a year or so, because he was working as a DJ and starting to have some success with his music. He married young and had a son Billy (who later committed suicide), and struggled to make a living. He was in and out of various jobs and in and out of the music business.

In 1960 he moved to Nashville and hung out in Tootsies Orchard lounge where he hung out with musicians and song writers, trying to get a start.  He sold his song “Crazy” which became a hit for Patsy Cline. His marriage was stormy and there was a story that his wife tied him up with skipping rope during a row.   (Other accounts say she sewed him up in a feathered filled comforter)....

In 1963, he married his second wife, Shirley Collie and bought a farm outside Nashville. Shirley was also a singer, and toured with her husband but their marriage broke up in 1971 when she discovered that he had fathered a child with another woman. However she worked with him after the divorce.
Willie was increasingly successful but was never very good with money. 

His ranch near Nashville burned down in the early 70s and he decided to leave Nashville.  He went back to his native Texas and settled in Austin. In the early 70s he released a concept album Phases and Stages, about a divorce, partly seen through the eyes of the husband and then from the wife’s standpoint. He and Waylon Jennings began to collaborate on songs in the “outlaw country” genre, so called because it was more raucous and real, and didn’t conform to the “Nashville conventions” and sound. He also worked with Merle Haggard, with Johnny Cash, and eventually in a super group, the Highwaymen which consisted of him, Waylon, Cash and Kris Kristofferson. Some of his hits included City of New Orleans, Hello Walls, Pancho and Lefty, Mama, don’t let your Babies grow up to be Cowboys…

He liked to experiment with his music, working with different artists such as Ray Charles and Neil Young.

But he ended up in trouble with the IRS.  By 1990, he owed them millions of dollars in unpaid taxes. Many of his assets were seized and sold but he managed to clear his debts within a few years.

Willie is notorious for his love of touring, one of his most famous songs being “On the Road again. “ And he kept on working hard, even as he grew older, to earn money.

During the 1980s, he began an acting career, first in the Film, “Electric horseman” and later in a remake of Stagecoach with Johnny Cash.  He had a busy career in TV and films, taking part in an episode of Miami Vice, in a film based on his own life called “Honeysuckle Rose” and in a film version of the Dukes of Hazzard. 

As well as his music, and acting, Willie is a generous man, with a lot of charity interests.  He -together with John Mellencamp and Neil Young started “Farm Aid”, a charity to help American farmers and he has worked with other charities. He is an advocate for liberalisation of marijuana laws, having smoked weed much of his life.. and having gotten into trouble with the police over it many times.  He also promotes the use of Biofuels and solar energy.

he is still out there singing, and performing with his guitar Trigger... And has always been well known for being generous in the time he spends with fans, after his gigs.