Colonna sonora / OST dell' omonimo film di Alan Rudolph, con i due cantanti protagonisti
Track listing01 HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT FOOLIN' AROUND (WILLIE & KRIS)02 SONGWRITER (WILLIE) 03 WHO'LL BUY MY MEMORIES (WILLIE) 04 WRITE YOUR OWN SONGS (WILLIE) 05 NOBODY SAID IT WAS GOING TO BE EASY (WILLIE) 06 GOOD TIMES (WILLIE) 07 EYE OF THE STORM (WILLIE & KRIS) 08 CROSSING THE BORDER (KRIS) 09 DOWN TO HER SOCKS (KRIS) 10 UNDER THE GUN (KRIS) 11 THE FINAL ATTRACTION (KRIS) |
Is it true that when cowboys die, they go to Texas? Tonight is cowboy heaven for sure — as two forever young good ole boys named Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson smile and press the flesh and inch their way through phalanxes of ecstatic fans on their way to the bandstand. Out front, a couple thousand of the faithful are whooping it up and pouring down the Lone Star beer at Austin’s Opry House, a true shrine of C&W. It was here that Willie put modern Country on the map in the early ’70s when he gave up on Nashville’s establishment and drifted on down to Austin to forge an alliance between hippies and rednecks.
Hordes of both — now almost indistinguishable, what with their pierced ears and long hair and pounds of silver and gold jewelry and flowered shirts and skintight jeans (and that’s only the men) — are starting their “Willie” chant. Even though the concert footage has already been shot at the Opry House for Songwriter, the movie that Willie and Kris are filming here, Willie got cabin fever after awhile and decided he just had to do a show. Since he now owns the Opry House, along with a lot of other prime Austin real estate, it wasn’t too hard to set up. Austin can never get enough of Willie, especially since he now spends most of his time in Colorado or on the road. He is still a holy man in Texas.
Backstage, Willie, still in his “Doc Jenkins” black garb from the day’s shooting, smiles his guru smile and shakes the hands of preppies in blazers and bikers in leather and grandmothers in shawls and little children and clean-cut jocks and guys who look suspiciously like dope dealers and businessmen wearing suits and left-over ’60’s hippies and farmers and former University of Texas coach Darrell Royal. They are smiling at each other so much that, if you didn’t know better, you might think this is a mob of some kind of babbling religious freaks. But no, they’re just Willie fanatics.
Willie embraces Kristofferson, who is still wearing the black outfit of the “Blackie Buck” character in the movie. Kris and Willie are the old pros of progressive C&W and their lined faces and salt-and-pepper bears show a lot of years of being rode hard and put up wet. But, as a bystander points out, they fearlessly — and recklessly — went up against heavy odds in fighing Nashville’s establishment.
“And, bah Gahd, we won, didn’t we, Willie?” rasps Kris in his window-rattling rumble of a voice, hugging Willie amid the chaos. “Yeah, Kris, I guess we did,” Willie says quietly. Then he and his band hit the stage to plead: “Whiskey river, take my mind.” The crowd erupts and doesn’t stop. It’s an old-fashioned hoedown with dancers and drinkers twirling and swirling thorugh hours of Willie and Kris, and Kris and Willie stripping down to black T-shirts and dripping with sweat by the time they turn Amazing Grace into a Country Mass — hundreds of europhoric worshipers jumping to their feet and pointing their fingers heavenward and singing along witha Texas sermon from Matthew, Mark, Kris and Willie. And not one fight. Remarkable for a honky-tonk.
“God, Willie’s great,” Kris says a few minutes after the show, back in his modest suite at the Ramada Inn, as he picks his way through stacks of toys for his children and calls room service to order himself some rabbit food and volcano water.
Ten years ago, when they were really living the lives of Doc and Blackie, Kris and Willie existed on shots of tequila and more shots of tequila, with the occasional night out on shots of Jack Daniel’s. They were living right out there “on the border,” as Kris sings in this movie. And they were slogging through the drugs-and-alcohol diet thought essential to capture the exquisite pain of country music.
No longer.  Kris pulls off his T-shirt to reveal that he’s healthy now, rippling muscles and all that. Coherent. Sane. Everything that he is not in Songwriter. Doesn’t drink or drug anymore. Runs 10 miles a day. Plays golf with Willie. Eats right. Is writing songs again after a long drought.
“Yeah, things are going real good,” he says with a satisfied sigh from his easy chair, boots up on the table. “I got married. Wasn’t no big thing, but yeah, we got a little boy now. My wife’s named Lisa. She’s a lawyer. She was in law school at Pepperdine when I met her. We had a little boy on the seventh of October — Jesse Turner Kristofferson. ‘Jesse’ for an old football coach I had and ‘Turner’ for [band member] Turner Stephen Bruton.
“Wille’s got a great philosphy — about running, about golf, about everything. Kick it back to where you can enjoy it, you know? I’t like, if youre’ running too hard and you’re miserable, then ease off a little bit. He runs for pleasure, not to drive himself. I swear to God” – he laughts at the notion — “being around Willie is like being around Buddah. He gives off these positive attitudes. Next thing you know, you’re acting like him.”
He laughs again, shaking his head in wonderment as he pushes his room service tray aside. He turns and trains the full force of his intense, sky-blue deep-set eyes on his visitor and says seriously, “I’ll never be like him. I’ll never be able to walk directly from the golf cart to the stage. But I’ll never again put myself through the angst I used to. This film as changed my life as much as A Star is Born did. That was a real turning point because I saw that I had potential as an actor. It was enough to clean me up, to quit drinking, you know. And this move has justified my getting cleaned up. You always hope that working with friends will work, but working with Willie is a real bonus because the chemistry on the screen is so good. This has turned out to be the best experience of my life.”
Doc Jenkins (Willie Nelson) is a singer/songwriter who tries to leave his singer/songwriter roots to be a music "mogul", and gets tangled up in a bad publishing deal. He enlists a team of cronies, including a young singer (Lesley Ann Warren) and his former singing partner, Blackie Buck (Kris Kristofferson), and together they execute his plan to get out of the deal. Hilarious help from Rip Torn as a stereotypical small-time concert promoter, Melinda Dillon as the love interest/ex-wife, and Mickey Raphael, who was actually a member of Willie's band.
Born in Brownsville, Texas, Kristofferson's parents were Mary Ann (née Ashbrook) and Lars Henry Kristofferson, a U.S. Air Force major general.When Kris was a child, his father pushed his son toward a military career (Kristofferson's paternal grandfather was an officer in the Swedish Army).Like most military brats, he moved around frequently as a youth, finally settling down in San Mateo, California, where he graduated from San Mateo High School. An aspiring writer, Kristofferson enrolled in Pomona College in 1954. He experienced his first dose of fame when he appeared in Sports Illustrated's "Faces In The Crowd" for his achievements in collegiate rugby union, football, and track and field. He and fellow classmates revived the Claremont Colleges Rugby Club in 1958, which has remained a Southern California rugby dynasty. Kristofferson became a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Pomona College, and graduated in 1958 with a BA in Literature.
Kristofferson earned a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, where he joined Merton College. While at Oxford he was awarded his blue for boxing and began writing songs. With the help of his manager, Larry Parnes, he recorded for Top Rank Records under the name Kris Carson. This early phase of his music career was unsuccessful.
In 1960, Kristofferson graduated with a MA in English literature and married an old girlfriend, Fran Beer. Kristofferson ultimately joined the U.S. Army and achieved the rank of captain. He became a helicopter pilot after receiving flight training at Fort Rucker, Alabama. He also completed Ranger School. During the early 1960s, he was deployed to West Germany as a member of the 8th Infantry Division. It was during this time that he resumed his music career and formed a band. In 1965, when his tour of duty ended, Kristofferson was offered a position as a professor of English Literature at West Point. Instead, he decided to leave the Army and pursue songwriting professionally. Kristofferson sent some of his compositions to a friend's relative, Marijohn Wilkin, a successful Nashville, Tennessee songwriter.
After resigning his Army commission in 1965, Kristofferson moved to Nashville. He worked a at variety of odd jobs while struggling for success in music, burdened with medical expenses resulting from his son's defective esophagus. He and his wife soon divorced.
He got a job sweeping floors at Columbia Studios in Nashville. There he met Johnny Cash who initially accepted some of Kristofferson's songs but chose not to use them. During Kristofferson's janitorial stint for Columbia, Bob Dylan recorded his landmark 1966 album Blonde on Blonde at the studio. Though he had the opportunity to watch some of Dylan's recording sessions, Kristofferson never met Dylan out of fear that he would be fired for approaching him.
He also worked as a commercial helicopter pilot at that time for a south Louisiana firm called Petroleum Helicopters International (PHI), based in Lafayette, Louisiana. Kristofferson recalled of his days as a pilot, "That was about the last three years before I started performing, before people started cutting my songs... I would work a week down here [in south Louisiana] for PHI, sitting on an oil platform and flying helicopters. Then I'd go back to Nashville at the end of the week and spend a week up there trying to pitch the songs, then come back down and write songs for another week... I can remember 'Help Me Make It Through The Night' I wrote sitting on top of an oil platform. I wrote 'Bobby Mcgee' down here, and a lot of them [in south Louisiana]."
In 1966, Dave Dudley released a successful Kristofferson single, "Viet Nam Blues". In 1967, Kristofferson signed to Epic Records and released a single, "Golden Idol"/"Killing Time", but the song was not successful. Within the next few years, more Kristofferson originals hit the charts, performed by Roy Drusky ("Jody and the Kid"), Billy Walker & the Tennessee Walkers ("From the Bottle to the Bottom"), Ray Stevens ("Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down"), Jerry Lee Lewis ("Once More with Feeling") Faron Young ("Your Time's Comin'") and Roger Miller ("Me and Bobby McGee", "Best of all Possible Worlds", "Darby's Castle"). Further, he achieved some success as a performer himself, resulting from Johnny Cash's introduction of Kristofferson at the Newport Folk Festival.
In a distinctly notable fashion, Kristofferson grabbed Cash's attention when he unexpectedly landed his helicopter in Cash's yard and gave him some tapes including "Sunday Morning Coming Down".
Kristofferson signed to Monument Records as a recording artist. In addition to running that label, Fred Foster also served as manager of Combine Music, Kristofferson's songwriting label. His debut album for Monument in 1970 was Kristofferson, which included a few new songs as well as many of his previous hits. Sales were poor, although this debut album would become a success the following year when it was re-released under the title Me & Bobby McGee. Kristofferson's compositions were still in high demand. Ray Price ("For the Good Times"), Waylon Jennings ("The Taker"), Bobby Bare ("Come Sundown"), Johnny Cash ("Sunday Morning Coming Down") and Sammi Smith ("Help Me Make It Through the Night") all recorded successful versions of his songs in the early 1970s. "For the Good Times" (Ray Price) won 'Song of the Year" in 1970 from the Academy of Country Music, while "Sunday Morning Coming Down" (Johnny Cash) won the same award from the Academy's rival, the Country Music Association in the same year. This is the only time an individual received the same award from these two organizations in the same year for different songs.
In 1971, Janis Joplin, who dated Kristofferson until her death, had a number 1 hit with "Me and Bobby McGee" from her posthumous Pearl. When released, it stayed on the number one spot on the charts for weeks. More hits followed from others: Ray Price ("I Won't Mention It Again", "I'd Rather Be Sorry"), Joe Simon ("Help Me Make It Through the Night"), Bobby Bare ("Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends"), O.C. Smith ("Help Me Make It Through the Night") Jerry Lee Lewis ("Me and Bobby McGee"), Patti Page ("I'd Rather Be Sorry") and Peggy Little ("I've Got to Have You"). Kristofferson released his second album, The Silver Tongued Devil and I in 1971; the album was a success and established Kristofferson's career as a recording artist in his own right. Soon after, Kristofferson made his acting debut in The Last Movie (directed by Dennis Hopper) and appeared at the Isle of Wight Festival. In 1972, he acted in Cisco Pike and released his third album, Border Lord; the album was all-new material and sales were sluggish. He also swept the Grammies that year with numerous songs nominated and several winning song of the year. Kristofferson's 1972 fourth album, Jesus Was a Capricorn initially had slow sales, but the third single, "Why Me", was a success and significantly increased album sales.
For the next few years, Kristofferson focused on acting. He appeared in Blume in Love (directed by Paul Mazursky) and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (directed by Sam Peckinpah). He continued acting, in Sam Peckinpah's Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Convoy, (another Sam Peckinpah film which was released in 1978), Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Vigilante Force, a film based on the Yukio Mishima novel The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, and A Star Is Born (with Barbra Streisand), for which he received a Golden Globe Award. In spite of his success with Streisand, Kristofferson's solo musical career headed downward with his non-charting ninth album, Shake Hands with the Devil. His next film, Freedom Road, did not earn a theatrical release in the U.S. Kristofferson's next film was Heaven's Gate, a phenomenal industry-changing failure -- in which, nonetheless, he turned in a nuanced performance.
Also during this time, Kristofferson met singer Rita Coolidge. They married in 1973 and released an album titled Full Moon, another success buoyed by numerous hit singles and Grammy nominations. However, his fifth album, Spooky Lady's Sideshow, released in 1974, was a commercial failure, setting the trend for most of the rest of his career. Artists such as Ronnie Milsap and Johnny Duncan continued to record Kristofferson's material with much success, but his amazing yet rough voice and anti-pop sound kept his own audience to a minimum. Meanwhile, more artists took his songs to the top of the charts, including Willie Nelson, whose 1979 LP release of Willie Nelson Sings Kris Kristofferson proved to be a smash success. Kristofferson and Coolidge divorced in 1980.
In 1982, Kristofferson participated (with Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and Brenda Lee) on The Winning Hand, a country success that failed to break into mainstream audiences. He married again, to Lisa Meyers, and concentrated on films for a time, appearing in The Lost Honor of Kathryn Beck, Flashpoint, and Songwriter. The latter also starred Willie Nelson. Kristofferson was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score. Music from Songwriter (an album of duets between Nelson and Kristofferson) was a massive country success.
Nelson and Kristofferson continued their partnership, and added Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash to form the supergroup The Highwaymen. Their first album, Highwayman was a huge success, and the supergroup continued working together for a time. In 1985, Kristofferson starred in Trouble in Mind and released Repossessed, a politically aware album that was a country success, particularly "They Killed Him" (also performed by Bob Dylan), a tribute to his heroes, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesus, and Mohandas Gandhi. Kristofferson also appeared in Amerika at about the same time; the mini-series was controversial, hypothesizing life under Communist domination.
In spite of the success of Highwayman 2 in 1990, Kristofferson's solo recording career slipped significantly in the early 1990s, though he continued to record successfully with the Highwaymen. Lone Star (1996 film by John Sayles) reinvigorated Kristofferson's acting career, and he soon appeared in Blade, Blade II, Blade: Trinity, A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries, Fire Down Below, Tim Burton's remake of Planet of the Apes, Chelsea Walls, Payback, The Jacket and Fast Food Nation.
The Songwriters Hall of Fame inducted Kristofferson in 1985, as did the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1977. 1999 saw the release of The Austin Sessions. An album on which Kristofferson reworked some of his favorite songs with the help of befriended artists such as Mark Knopfler, Steve Earle and Jackson Browne. In 2003 Broken Freedom Song was released, a live album recorded in San Francisco.
In 2004 he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. In 2006, he received the Johnny Mercer Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame and released his first album full of new material in 11 years; This Old Road. On April 21 2007, Kristofferson won CMT's Johnny Cash Visionary Award. Rosanne Cash, Cash's daughter, presented the honor during the April 16 awards show in Nashville. Previous recipients include Cash, Hank Williams Jr., Loretta Lynn, Reba McEntire and the Dixie Chicks. "John was my hero before he was my friend, and anything with his name on it is really an honor in my eyes," Kristofferson said during a phone interview. "I was thinking back to when I first met him, and if I ever thought that I'd be getting an award with his name on it, it would have carried me through a lot of hard times."
In July 2007, Kristofferson was featured on CMT's "Studio 330 Sessions" where he played many of his hits.
On June 13, 2008 Kristofferson performed an acoustic in the round set with Patty Griffin and Randy Owen (Alabama) for a special taping of a PBS songwriters series to be aired in December. Each performer played 5 songs. Kristofferson's included "The Best of All Possible World's," "Darby's Castle," "Casey's Last Ride," "Me and Bobby McGee," and "Here Comes that Rainbow Again." Taping was done in Nashville, TN.
Kristofferson has two younger siblings, Karen Kristofferson Kirschenbauer and Kraigher Kristofferson. His sister attended Pomona College where she studied acting but she then married a career military officer and moved around the world regularly with him and their three sons. After her sons grew up, she decided to get involved in acting. She acted in a number of films, TV and commercials. She died in May 2005. Kraigher, known as Kraig, is a high end commercial estate agent in Southern California.
Kristofferson has been married three times and has eight children. In 1960, Kristofferson married his high school sweetheart Frances (Fran) Beer. They had two children, a daughter Tracy Kristofferson and a son Kris Kristofferson before divorcing in 1969. After Kristofferson dated Janis Joplin until her death and then dated Barbra Streisand. In 1973, he married singer Rita Coolidge and together they had one child, Casey Kristofferson. They divorced in 1980. In 1983 he married Lisa Meyers and together they have five children - Jesse Turner Kristofferson, Jody Ray Kristofferson, Johnny Cash Kristofferson, Kelly Marie Kristofferson, and Blake Cameron Kristofferson.
He has said that he would like the first three lines of Leonard Cohen's "Bird on the Wire" on his tombstone:
On February 29, 2008 Kristofferson officially endorsed Barack Obama for President. A member of Veterans for Peace, Kristofferson took several trips to Nicaragua with peace activist S. Brian Willson during the 1980s. He also opposes the Iraq War and has been calling for an end to it as demonstrated in his song "In The News".
Nelson was born and raised in Abbott, Texas, the son of Myrle and Ira D. Nelson, who was a mechanic and pool hall owner. His grandparents William Alfred Nelson and Nancy Elizabeth Smothers gave him mail-order music lessons starting at age six. He wrote his first song when he was seven and was playing in a local band at age nine. Willie played the guitar, while his sister Bobbie played the piano. He met Bud Fletcher, a fiddler, and two siblings joined his band, Bohemian Fiddlers, while Nelson was in high school. While he was in high school he took part in the National FFA Organization (formerly known as the Future Farmers of America).
Beginning in high school Nelson worked as a disc jockey for local radio stations. Nelson had short DJ stints with KHBR in Hillsboro, Texas, and later with KBOP in Pleasanton, Texas, while singing locally in honky tonk bars.
Nelson graduated from Abbott High School in 1951. He joined the Air Force the same year but was discharged after nine months due to back problems. He then studied agriculture at Baylor University for one year in 1954.
In 1956, Nelson moved to Vancouver, Washington, to begin a musical career, recording "Lumberjack," which was written by Leon Payne. The single sold fairly well, but did not establish a career. Nelson continued to work as a radio announcer in Vancouver and sing in clubs. He sold a song called "Family Bible" for $50; the song was a hit for Claude Gray in 1960, has been covered widely and is often considered a gospel music classic.
Nelson moved to Nashville in 1960, but was unable to land a record label contract. He did, however, receive a publishing contract at Pamper Music. After Ray Price recorded Nelson's "Night Life" (reputedly the most covered country song of all time; a version of "Night Life" was even recorded by convicted killer and former cult leader Charles Manson), Nelson joined Price's touring band as a bass player. While playing with Ray Price and the Cherokee Cowboys, many of Nelson's songs became hits for some of country and pop music's biggest stars of the time. These songs include "Funny How Time Slips Away" (Billy Walker), "Hello Walls" (Faron Young), "Pretty Paper" (Roy Orbison) and most famously, "Crazy" (Patsy Cline). Nelson signed with Liberty Records in 1961 and released several singles, including "Willingly" (sung with his wife, Shirley Collie) and "Touch Me."
He was unable to keep his momentum going, however, and Nelson's career ground to a halt. Demo recordings from his years as a songwriter for Pamper Music were later discovered and released as Crazy: The Demo Sessions (2003).
In 1965, Nelson moved to RCA Victor Records and joined the Grand Ole Opry. He followed this with a series of minor hits and then retired and moved to Austin, Texas. While in Austin, with its burgeoning "hippie" music scene (see Armadillo World Headquarters), Nelson decided to return to music. His popularity in Austin soared, as he played his own brand of country music marked by rock and roll, jazz, western swing, and folk influences. A lifelong passion for running and a new commitment to his own health also began during this period.
In the mid 1970's, Nelson purchased property near Lake Travis in Austin and built Pedernales Studio. The studio underwent state of the art renovations in the mid 1990's, and many top recording artists adorn its client list. Its amenities include a 9-hole golf course, tennis courts and an Olympic size swimming pool.
Nelson signed with Atlantic Records and released Shotgun Willie (1973), which won excellent reviews but did not sell well. Phases and Stages (1974), a concept album inspired by his divorce, included the hit single "Bloody Mary Morning." Nelson then moved to Columbia Records, where he was given complete creative control over his work. The result was the critically acclaimed, massively popular concept album, Red Headed Stranger (1975). Although Columbia was reluctant to release an album with primarily a guitar and piano for accompaniment, Nelson insisted (with the assistance of Waylon Jennings) and the album was a huge hit, partially because it included a popular cover of "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" (written by Fred Rose in 1945). "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" became Nelson's first number one hit as a singer.
Along with Nelson, Waylon Jennings was also achieving success in country music in the early 1970s, and the pair were soon combined into a genre called outlaw country ("outlaw" because it did not conform to Nashville standards). Nelson's outlaw image was cemented with the release of the album Wanted! The Outlaws (1976, with Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser), country music's first platinum album. Nelson continued to top the charts with hit songs during the late 1970s, including "Good Hearted Woman" (a duet with Jennings), "Remember Me", "If You've Got the Money I've Got the Time", "Uncloudy Day", "I Love You a Thousand Ways", and "Something to Brag About" (a duet with Mary Kay Place).
In 1978, Nelson released two more platinum albums, Waylon and Willie (a collaboration with Jennings that included "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys," which was written and originally recorded as a hit single by Ed Bruce a couple of years earlier), and Stardust, an unusual album of popular standards. It was produced by Booker T. Jones. Though most observers predicted that Stardust would ruin his career, it ended up being one of his most successful recordings.
Little is known about Willie's life in Minnesota, however he did live there for quite some time. While living in Minnesota, Willie had three children; Brian, Jessica, and Jacob Nelson. Brian and Jacob both play guitar and consider music a vital part of their life, much like their father.
Nelson began acting, appearing in The Electric Horseman (1979), Honeysuckle Rose (1980), Thief (1981), and Barbarosa (1982). Also in 1982 he played "Red Loon," in Coming Out of the Ice with John Savage. In 1984 he starred in the movie Songwriter with Kris Kristoferson guest starring. He then had the lead role in Red Headed Stranger (1986, with Morgan Fairchild), Wag the Dog (1997), Gone Fishin (1997) as Billy 'Catch' Pooler, the 1986 TV movie Stagecoach (with Johnny Cash), and Dukes of Hazzard (2006).
He has continued acting since his early successes, but usually in smaller roles and cameos, some of which involve his status as a cannabis activist and icon. One of his more popular recent cameos was a performance in Half Baked as an elderly "Historian Smoker" who, while smoking marijuana, would reminisce about how things used to be in his younger years. Nelson also appeared as himself in the 2006 movie Beerfest, looking for teammates to join him in a mythical world-championship cannabis-smoking contest held in Amsterdam. That same week Willie Nelson recorded, "I'll Never Smoke Weed with Willie Again" with Toby Keith.
He has made guest appearances on Miami Vice, Delta, Nash Bridges, The Simpsons, Monk, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, King of the Hill, Bones and The Colbert Report. He played country singer-songwriter Johnny Dean in the 1997 film Wag the Dog. He played Uncle Jesse in The Dukes of Hazzard, the 2005 cinematic treatment of the television series, and was the only member of the big screen cast to reprise the role in the TV/DVD movie prequel The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning (2007) . He also briefly appeared in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.
The Eighties saw a series of hit singles: "On the Road Again" from the movie Honeysuckle Rose and "To All the Girls I've Loved Before" (a rather incongruous duet with Julio Iglesias). There were also more popular albums, including Pancho & Lefty (1982, with Merle Haggard), WWII (1982, with Waylon Jennings) and Take it to the Limit (1983, with Waylon Jennings).
In the mid-1980s, Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, and Johnny Cash formed a group called The Highwaymen. They achieved unexpectedly massive success, including platinum record sales and worldwide touring. Meanwhile, he became more and more involved in charity work, such as establishing the Farm Aid concerts in 1985.
In 1990, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) handed Nelson a bill for $16.7 million in back taxes and seized most of his assets to help pay the charges. He released The IRS Tapes: Who'll Buy My Memories? as a double album, with all profits going straight to the IRS. Many of his assets were auctioned and purchased by friends, who gave his possessions back to him or rented them at a nominal fee. He sued accounting firm Price Waterhouse, contending that they put him into tax shelters that were later disallowed. The lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount. His debts were paid by 1993.
In 1996, Willie Nelson was featured on the Beach Boys' now out-of-print album Stars and Stripes Vol. 1 singing a cover of their 1964 song "The Warmth of the Sun" with the Beach Boys themselves providing the harmonies and backing vocals. He also starred in Baywatch as an old man in boxer shorts.
He released Across the Borderline in 1993, with guests Bob Dylan, Sinéad O'Connor, David Crosby, Bonnie Raitt, Kris Kristofferson and Paul Simon.
During the 1990s and 2000s, Nelson has toured continuously and released albums that generally received mixed reviews, with the exception of 1998's critically acclaimed Teatro (which was produced by Daniel Lanois—more commonly known for his work with U2—and featured supporting vocals by Emmylou Harris). Later that year, he joined rock band Phish onstage for several songs as part of the annual Farm Aid festival. He also performed a duet concert with fellow Highwayman Johnny Cash, recorded for the VH1 Storytellers series.
Nelson received Kennedy Center Honors in 1998. A star-studded television special celebrating his 70th birthday aired in 2003. In 2004, he released Outlaws & Angels, featuring guests Toby Keith, Joe Walsh, Merle Haggard, Kid Rock, Al Green, Shelby Lynne, Carole King, Toots Hibbert, Ben Harper, Lee Ann Womack, The Holmes Brothers, Los Lonely Boys, Lucinda Williams, Keith Richards, Jerry Lee Lewis and Rickie Lee Jones. Willie Nelson: An Epic Life by Joe Nick Patoski will be released in April, 2008. Mr. Patoski did over 100 interviews with Willie, his family, his band, the people he grew up with in Abbott, and many others. This is part biography, part memoir, part history, from the depression to Willie as he celebrates his 75th birthday.
In 2008, Willie Nelson teamed up with World Idol contest winner Kurt Nilsen from Norway and recorded the duet American classic "Lost Highway". The duet reached the top of the charts in Norway, and was performed live for the first time when Nilsen made a surprise guest appearance at Nelson's show in Hamar on 2nd May.
In 2004, Nelson and his wife Annie became partners with Bob and Kelly King in the building of two Pacific Bio-diesel plants, one in Salem, Oregon, and the other at Carl's Corner, Texas, (the Texas plant was founded by Carl Cornelius, a longtime Nelson friend). In 2005, Nelson and several other business partners formed Willie Nelson Biodiesel ("Bio-Willie"), a company that is marketing bio-diesel bio-fuel to truck stops. The fuel is made from vegetable oil (mainly soybean oil), and can be burned without modification in diesel engines.
Nelson is a co-chair of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) advisory board. He has worked with NORML for years for marijuana legalization and has produced commercials for NORML that have appeared on Pot TV programs. He has also recorded a number of radio commercials for the organization. In 2005, Nelson and his family hosted the first annual "Willie Nelson & NORML Benefit Golf Tournament," which appeared on the cover of High Times magazine.
On January 9, 2005, Nelson headlined an all-star concert at Austin Music Hall to benefit the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. Tsunami Relief Austin to Asia raised an estimated $120,000 for UNICEF and two other organizations.
Nelson was a supporter of Kinky Friedman's campaign in the 2006 Texas gubernatorial election. In 2005, he recorded a radio advertisement asking for support to put Friedman on the ballot as an independent candidate. Friedman promised Willie a job in Austin as the head of a new Texas Energy Commission due to Nelson's support of bio-fuels. (Friedman was on the ballot but came in fourth with 12.43 percent, losing to Republican Rick Perry.
Nelson supported Dennis Kucinich's campaign in the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries. He raised money, appeared at events, composed a song ("Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?"), and contributing a quote for the front cover of Kucinich's book for the campaign.
In January 2008, Nelson filed suit against the Texas Democratic Party. Nelson alleges that the party violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution when it refused to allow co-plaintiff Dennis Kucinich to appear on the primary ballot because he had scratched out part of the loyalty oath on his application.
Nelson is an honorary trustee of the Dayton International Peace Museum.
Nelson is an advocate for horses and their treatment. He has been campaigning for passage of the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (H.R. 503/S. 311) with the Animal Welfare Institute. He is on the Board of Directors and has adopted a number of horses from Habitat for Horses.
In March 2007, Ben & Jerry's released a new flavor, "Willie Nelson’s Country Peach Cobbler Ice Cream". Nelson's proceeds will be donated to Farm Aid. The flavor has been re-released and is now available, after Ben & Jerry's voluntary recall of 250,000 pints of the new flavor on March 19, 2007, as wheat was incorrectly excluded from the list of ingredients.
Willie Nelson founded the Willie Nelson Peace Research Institute in April 2007. Nelson and his daughter Amy Nelson wrote a song called "A Peaceful Solution", which they released into the public domain, and encouraged artists to render their own version of the song, which he would feature on the Institute's web site.
Nelson questions the official story of what happened on September 11th. On February 4th, 2008, Nelson appeared on Alex Jones's radio show and talked about the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, stating his belief that the Twin Towers and WTC7 were imploded: "I saw one fall and it was just so symmetrical, I said wait a minute I just saw that last week at the casino in Las Vegas and you see these implosions all the time and the next one fell and I said hell there's another one - and they're trying to tell me that an airplane did it and I can't go along with that."
Willie Nelson has been married four times and fathered 7 children.
Nelson can trace his genealogy back to the American Revolutionary War, in which his ancestor John Nelson served as a Major.
Nelson is a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon international fraternity.
Willie Nelson is widely recognized as an American icon. His distinctive music and other social and political activities sometimes take a backseat to his pop-culture public image (firmly grounded in the acknowledged reality of his life) - that of an elderly, lifelong marijuana-smoking, tax-evading, biodiesel-burning, old-school cowboy-hippie troubadour. His image is marked by his red hair, often divided into two long braids partially concealed under a bandana. He has been featured in recent advertisements for a variety of products and companies, including a 2002 spot directed by Peter Lindbergh for Gap where he performs Hank Williams' "Move It On Over" alongside Ryan Adams.
During the controversial mid-decade 2003 Texas redistricting attempt by Republicans in the Texas Legislature, Nelson supported the quorum-busting "Killer Ds," Democrats who left the state and briefly stayed at a Holiday Inn in Ardmore, Oklahoma to prevent the Texas House of Representatives from considering the legislation. Nelson sent the legislators a case of red bandanas, T-shirts, and a case of whiskey with a note that read "Stand your ground." According to Time, "The Dems then broke into a campfire-style sing-along of Merle Haggard's 'Okie from Muskogee' from a second-floor balcony...At a press briefing that evening, legislator Jim McReynolds said, "We have not heard from Governor (Rick) Perry or Speaker (Tom) Craddick, but we have heard from the most powerful Texan of all, Willie Nelson."
In 2005, Democratic Texas Senator Gonzalo Barrientos introduced a bill to name 49 miles of the Travis County section of State Highway 130, after Nelson. At one point, Barrientos had 23 of the 31 state Senators as co-sponsors. The legislation was dropped after two Republican senators, Florence Shapiro and Jeff Wentworth, pulled the bill from the Senate's "Local and Uncontested Calendar" and Barrientos decided not to put it on the regular calendar. Republicans' objections were based on Nelson's lack of connection to the highway, his fundraisers for Democrats, his drinking and his marijuana advocacy.
Nelson also volunteered to narrate "The Austin Disaster, 1911", a little-known documentary about a flood in Potter County, Pennsylvania . Before the tragedy, an unrelated William "Willie" Nelson repeatedly warned residents of possible dam failure.
In 2002 Willie released the album, The Great Divide. A few songs on the album were written by Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20 and Bernie Taupin. Rob Thomas contributed background vocals and made an appearance in the video for, "Maria (Shut Up and Kiss Me)." Lee Ann Womack appeared on the song, "Mendocino County Line" which was also released as a single (Mendocino County is an actual county located in California. Mendocino county voters approved Measure G, which calls for the decriminalization of marijuana when used and cultivated for personal use). Other guests on The Great Divide include Kid Rock, Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow, and Alison Krauss. Willie also covered Cyndi Lauper's, "Time After Time."
Willie Nelson performed a duet on "Beer for my Horses" with Toby Keith on Keith's Unleashed album released in 2002. This song was released as a single in 2003 and Nelson shot a video with Keith in 2003. The single topped the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts for six consecutive weeks and the video won an award for "Best Video" at the Academy of Country Music Awards held on May 26, 2004.
In 2002, Nelson signed a deal to become the official spokesman of the Texas Roadhouse, a fast-growing chain of steakhouses in the U.S. Since then, Nelson has heavily promoted the chain (including a special on Food Network). Meanwhile the Texas Roadhouse itself installed "Willie's Corner" at several locations, which is a section dedicated to Nelson and decked out with memorabilia of him.
No stranger to controversy, he released the Tex-Mex style "Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other," a song about gay cowboys, as a digital single through the iTunes Music Store on Valentine's Day 2006, shortly after the release of the film Brokeback Mountain (which also featured Nelson on the soundtrack). He deadpans his way through the song, with such phrases as "What did you think all them saddles and boots was about?" and "Inside every cowboy there's a lady who'd love to slip out." The song was written and first recorded more than twenty years previously by musicologist/songwriter Ned Sublette and had also been covered, prior to Nelson's version, by queercore band Pansy Division.
In 2006, Julio Iglesias recorded Willie's hit "Always on My Mind" for Iglesias' upcoming Romantic Classics album, due out September 19, 2006. This song was recorded 20 years after Julio and Willie teamed up for "To All the Girls I've Loved Before."
In the April 2007 issue of Stuff Magazine Nelson was interviewed about his long locks. "I started braiding my hair when it started getting too long, and that was, I don't know, probably in the 70's."
On January 29, 2008 Nelson released his latest album entitled Moment of Forever.
The January 2008 issue of High Times magazine has Willie Nelson on the cover with an interview.
In May 2008, Nelson appeared on a duet with Norwegian pop star and former World Idol winner Kurt Nilsen on the country classic "Lost Highway". The single topped the Norwegian charts and was released on Nilsen's album Rise To The Occasion. Subsequent reports have stated that Nelson is eager to expand the collaboration further.
In May 2008, Willie Nelson appeared in Amsterdam with rap icon Snoop Dogg where they did a live version of "SuperMan". Subsequently the two have become friends and recently released a video "My Medicine", which has received much play on YouTube.
Nelson's touring and recording group is a collection of a number of longstanding members, including his sister Bobbie Nelson, longtime drummer Paul English, harmonicist Mickey Raphael, Bee Spears, Billy English (Paul's younger brother), and Jody Payne. Willie tours North America in his bio-diesel (aka "Bio-Willie" - Willie Nelson Bio-diesel) bus, the "Honeysuckle Rose IV."
Nelson's principal guitar is a Martin N-20 nylon-string acoustic, which he has named "Trigger", after Roy Rogers' horse. Constant strumming (with a guitar pick) over the decades has worn a large sweeping hole into the guitar's body near the sound hole (there is no pick-guard on the Martin N-20 since classical guitars are meant to be played fingerstyle instead of with flat-picks) . Its soundboard has been signed over the years by over a hundred of Nelson's friends and associates, from fellow musicians to lawyers and football coaches. Nelson has often said that when the hole in Trigger's body makes the guitar unplayable he will retire.
