Willie Nelson

Nashville to Austin

Willie Hugh Nelson was born on April 29, 1933 in Abbott, Texas, and was raised with an older sister by his paternal grandparents; he wrote his first song at seven and joined his first band at ten. He made his first recordings while working as a disc jockey in Pleasanton, Texas in 1955. He moved to Nashville in 1960 and joined Ray Price's band as bassist, writing songs that became hits for others: "Crazy" for Patsy Cline, "Hello Walls" for Faron Young and "Funny How Time Slips Away". His debut album, ...And Then I Wrote, came out on Liberty in 1962, and he joined the Grand Ole Opry after signing to RCA Victor in 1964 and 1965.

He moved to Austin in 1972, helping build the outlaw country movement, signed to Atlantic in 1973 for Shotgun Willie and Phases and Stages (1974), and to Columbia in 1975. Red Headed Stranger (May 1975) was recorded in January 1975 at Autumn Sound Studios in Garland, Texas, and produced his first number one as a singer with "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain"; it went two-times platinum. Wanted! The Outlaws (1976), with Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser, was country's first platinum album. Stardust (April 1978), produced by Booker T. Jones and recorded in a mobile unit at his Hollywood Hills home, went five-times platinum. He made his acting debut in The Electric Horseman (1979), and starred in Honeysuckle Rose (1980). Always on My Mind (1982) won three Grammys, and in the mid-1980s he formed the Highwaymen with Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson.

He helped organize the first Farm Aid in 1985, and Teatro (1998), Two Men with the Blues (2008, number one on the jazz albums chart), Country Music (2010, with T Bone Burnett), Band of Brothers (2014), God's Problem Child (2017) and Ride Me Back Home (2019) followed. He received the Library of Congress's Gershwin Prize in 2015 and entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023, inducted by Dave Matthews; his 90th birthday was celebrated at the Hollywood Bowl on April 29 and 30, 2023. His guitar Trigger is a Martin N-20 he bought in the 1970s, its soundboard signed by over a hundred people. Kris Kristofferson wrote that Nelson was a profound, original songwriter in a class with Stephen Foster.