Happy Birthday Willie Nelson

A great Texan, a great American, is 75 today. From the Texas Monthly oral history of Willie Nelson's life:

BILLY JOE SHAVER At the Dripping Springs Reunion [in 1972], there were all kinds of mixtures of things and that was back when the hippies and the cowboys were kinda lookin’ at each other, wondering what the hell was going on. And they got out there and mingled and nobody got in no trouble or nothing. I mean, it was just kind of like everything melted into one.

BOBBY EARL SMITH, 64, is a singer, songwriter, and attorney. He lives in Austin. I had never heard an album like Red Headed Stranger. I’d listen to it and think, “What the hell is all this about?” It’s got that mysterious quality that you kind of feel the meaning of more than you can say what it’s all about.

EMMYLOU HARRIS I spent a lot of my career, especially in the late seventies and eighties, opening for Willie. So I became part of Willie’s family, because that’s the way Willie is. I would do my show, and then I would watch Willie’s show and be on standby to come out and sing “Till I Gain Control Again” and other things. It was an amazing experience; you almost felt like you were at church. You felt like people were being nourished in their souls and in their spirits. The people there have one thing in common: They love Willie. And it makes them better and it makes them feel better about themselves.

ANNIE NELSON He’s extremely loyal. He does things because people need it. Friends of ours lost their son at eighteen, just before Christmas. And he knew instinctively just to go there. We went to them that night, and I can still hear him saying—it was the wife that was the most traumatized—“You don’t get over it, but you do get through it.” She repeated that at the memorial service, but it was sort of for him too. He knew to be there to say the words but also for her to see that he had survived too.

DARRELL ROYAL, 83, was the head football coach at the University of Texas from 1957 to 1976. He lives in Austin. I know this about Willie: He has a long memory of his friends. If anybody’s ever done anything for him, he remembers. When my son David died, Willie came to the house and brought his guitar and played some music just for my wife, Edith, and me. He played “Healing Hands of Time”: “They’re working, while I’m missing you, those healing hands of time / Soon they’ll let me sleep again, those healing hands of time.” And then when [Willie's son] Billy died, I went and visited him. I hope it helped him.

BEE SPEARS He’s real common. Once, we were on tour with Dolly Parton, and there was a big mud hole where our bus got stuck. She was fixin’ to pull in, and he went runnin’ around sayin’, “Wait, wait, wait!” And she said, “I like you. I like the way you talk. You’re real common, just like me.” And he said, “There ain’t nothin’ common about you, woman.”

ANNIE NELSON His songs come from a real perspective. Most people feel it, but they don’t know why. These are words that they would say or that they would want to say. He says it for them. But he says it succinctly and melodically, and that means that everybody who meets him says, “I feel like I know you.”