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WILLIE NELSON:
As a songwriter and a performer, Willie Nelson played a vital role in post-rock & roll
country music. Although he didn't become a star until the mid-'70s, Nelson spent
the '60s writing songs that became hits for stars like Ray Price ("Night
Life"), Patsy Cline ("Crazy"), Faron Young ("Hello Walls"),
and Billy Walker ("Funny How Time Slips Away") as well as releasing
a series of records on Liberty and RCA that earned him a small, but devoted,
cult following. During the early '70s, Willie aligned himself with Waylon Jennings
and the burgeoning outlaw country movement which made him into a star in 1975.
After he worked several part-time jobs, he landed a job as a country DJ at Fort
Worth's KCNC in 1954. Nelson continued to sing in honky tonks as he worked as
a DJ, deciding to make a stab at recording career by 1956. That year, he headed
to Vancouver, WA, where he recorded Leon Payne's "Lumberjack." At that
time, Payne was a DJ and he plugged "Lumberjack" on the air, which
eventually resulted in sales of 3,000 records.
Shotgun Willie (1973), Nelson's first album for Atlantic, was evidence of the
shift of his musical style, and although it initially didn't sell well, it earned
good reviews and cultivated a dedicated cult following. By the fall of 1973,
his version of Bob Wills' "Stay All Night (Stay a Little Longer)" had
cracked the country Top 40. However, the real commercial breakthrough didn't
arrive until 1975, when he severed ties with Atlantic and signed to Columbia
Records, who gave him complete creative control of his records. Willie's first
album for Columbia, The Red Headed Stranger, was a spare concept album about
a preacher, featuring only his guitar and his sister's piano.
Willie Nelson is still going strong today and just released his first reggae
album “Country Man” in 2005. |
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