Willie Nelson

Did You Know?

• Nelson's grandfather bought him a guitar when he was six and taught him a few chords.
• He named his Martin N-20 classical guitar 'Trigger' after Roy Rogers' horse.
• His birthday was incorrectly recorded by Dr. F. D. Sims as April 30.

Music career

Nelson was hired by KVAN in Vancouver, Washington, and appeared on a television show. His first record, "No Place for Me" (1956), with "Lumberjack" on the B-side, failed. He worked as a radio announcer and sang in Vancouver clubs, then moved to Springfield, Missouri, where he worked as a dishwasher after failing to get a spot on the Ozark Jubilee. He returned to Texas, quit music for a year, and sold Bibles, vacuum cleaners, and later became a sales manager for the Encyclopedia Americana. After his son Billy was born in 1958, the family moved to Houston. On the way, he sold songs to Larry Butler at the Esquire Ballroom, who gave him a $50 loan and a six-night job. Nelson recorded two singles for Pappy Daily on D Records and sold "Family Bible" to Paul Buskirk for $50 and "Night Life" for $150. "Family Bible" became a hit for Claude Gray in 1960. In 1960, Nelson moved to Nashville but could not find a label. At Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, he met Hank Cochran, who convinced Ray Price and Hal Smith to sign him to Pamper Music. Faron Young recorded "Hello Walls" after hearing Nelson sing it at Tootsie's.

Other ventures

Nelson's acting debut was in the 1979 film The Electric Horseman, followed by roles in Honeysuckle Rose, Thief, and Barbarosa. He played Red Loon in Coming Out of the Ice (1982) and starred in Songwriter (1984). He portrayed the lead in the 1986 film version of Red Headed Stranger. Other films include Wag the Dog, Gone Fishin', Stagecoach (1986), Half Baked, Beerfest, The Dukes of Hazzard, Surfer, Dude, and Swing Vote. He made guest appearances on Miami Vice, Delta, Nash Bridges, The Simpsons, Monk, Adventures in Wonderland, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, King of the Hill, The Colbert Report, and Space Ghost Coast to Coast. His first book, Willie: An Autobiography, was published in 1988. The Facts of Life: And Other Dirty Jokes followed in 2002. He co-authored Farm Aid: A Song for America (2005), The Tao of Willie (2006), On the Clean Road Again (2007), and A Tale Out of Luck (2008). Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die was released in 2012, and It's a Long Story: My Life in 2015. Pretty Paper was published in 2016.

Personal life

Nelson has been married four times and has eight children. He married Martha Matthews in 1952; they had three children: Lana, Susie, and Willie "Billy" Hugh Jr., who died by suicide in 1991. The marriage was marked by violence, with Matthews assaulting Nelson. He married Shirley Collie in 1963; they divorced in 1971 after she found a hospital bill for the birth of Paula Carlene Nelson to Nelson and Connie Koepke. He married Koepke in 1971; they had a daughter, Amy Lee Nelson, and divorced in 1988. In 1991, he married Annie D'Angelo; they have two sons, Lukas Autry and Jacob Micah. In 2012, Nelson learned he had fathered a daughter, Renee Butts (born Lynda Renee Barley), with Mary Haney; Butts died in 2017. Nelson owns a ranch in Spicewood, Texas, called "Luck, Texas," and lives in Maui, Hawaii. In 1981, his lung collapsed while swimming in Hawaii. He quit tobacco after repeated pneumonia and emphysema. He underwent surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome in 2004 and stem-cell therapy for his lungs in 2015.

Legacy

Nelson was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1993 and received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1998. In 2011, he was inducted into the National Agricultural Hall of Fame for his Farm Aid work. He won the Gershwin Prize in 2015. The Texas Institute of Letters inducted him in 2018. Rolling Stone included him on its 100 Greatest Singers and 100 Greatest Guitarists lists. In 2003, Texas Governor Perry signed a bill funding the Texas Music Project, with Nelson as honorary chairman. A 2005 bill to name a highway section after him was dropped due to objections. An important collection of his materials (1975–1994) is part of the Wittliff collections at Texas State University. In 2014, he donated his personal collection to the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. He received the "Feed the Peace" award from The Nobelity Project in 2010 and was inducted into the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry in 2010. He is an honorary trustee of the Dayton International Peace Museum.