Not Dead Again Today Willie Nelson
Willie Nelson is, as the vocal goes, "Still Not Dead"
Willie Nelson has been "On the Road Once again" -- and again and again -- always since he released that song back in 1980. And a vocal on his newest anthology proves he has no intention of hanging it upwards any time soon, a bespeak he underscores to our Bob Schieffer, For The Tape:
"I woke upward nonetheless non dead again today
The Internet said I had passed away
If I died I wasn't dead to stay
I woke up still not dead again today.
"At present, how in the globe practise you come up with that song?" Schieffer asked.
"Oh, I don't know -- I've been killed several times through the years!" Nelson laughed. "And and so I just idea I'd write something funny nigh it."
It's easy for Willie Nelson to laugh off these greatly exaggerated rumors of his demise. Closing in on his 84th birthday, he's on the road once more -- performing, writing music, and a new anthology out subsequently this month. "God'due south Problem Kid" is his 110th, requite or take, with songs like "Yet Not Dead" and "Onetime Timer."
To hear Willie Nelson perform "Old Timer" from "God's Problem Child," click on the video histrion beneath:
"At that place's a theme hither," said Schieffer. "This is nearly the autumn of life. Is that difficult for you to call back about?"
"No," he laughed. "You remember one of those deep thinkers, a guy named Seneca? He said you should look at death and comedy with the same eyebrow. And I believe that."
"The autumn of your life -- and I'm correct in that location with you, buddy -- information technology'south similar the springtime in everybody else'southward life. I mean, you're at the top of your powers, I would say, right now."
"Everything'due south going good," Nelson said. "I think age is just a number. It'southward the style I've heard it all my life: It's not how old yous are, information technology's how you feel. And I've been lucky with [everything], health-wise and career-wise.
"I oasis't actually got anything to bitch about!" he laughed.
It wasn't e'er then. Early on, Nelson left his native Texas for Nashville, making a name for himself writing hits for others, like "Crazy," recorded past Patsy Cline.
Nashville liked his songs, but his singing? Non then much.
At one point Nelson became and so dejected that he went out and laid downward in the middle of the street in Nashville hoping that a car would run over him. "'Class, it was midnight -- in that location wasn't a lot of traffic!" he laughed. "No car got me!"
"What were those days like?" Schieffer asked.
"Oh, they were wild and crazy. Y'all know, I was going through one relationship after another, i divorce after another. And those things volition make you write songs. If yous're a songwriter, that's where you become your material, from all your headaches and heartaches."
Nelson went dorsum to Texas, changed his wait, and changed his tune -- less Grand Ole Opry and more adept ole boy, spiced with a little hippy and redneck. With his friend Waylon Jennings came a new, raw sound: Outlaw country.
To watch Willie Nelson & Waylon Jennings perform "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Abound Upwardly to Be Cowboys" at Subcontract Help (1986), click on the video role player beneath.
Through the years, Nelson's music came to transcend genre. He's won viii Grammys, and honors he never imagined.
Regarding the record producer Harlan Howard'due south quip that "Country music is three chords and the truth," Schieffer asked Nelson, "What is it that sets your songs apart?"
"Well, you know, information technology's three-quarters of the style true. Yous can take more than three chords! But the truth matters."
"What causes you to come up with these songs that people say, 'Well, that's right'?"
"I don't know. I'grand just writing what I'm thinking. And if it comes out pretty good, I'll write it down somewhere and come up upward with a tune to it. But I'm just writing what I'm thinking, simply off the top of my head, actually."
Willie'due south large sister Bobbie has been looking out for him and playing pianoforte with him since they were kids being raised by their grandma in Abbott, Texas.
"He writes as he feels his emotions and his inner thoughts," Bobbie said. "He's actually a poet."
She's still there every night he takes the stage. And now two of his sons, Lukas and Micah, often perform with him.
Playing with his children, Nelson said, "is the greatest feeling in the world, to be up there with your kids and know that they're doing well and they're good, and you can be proud of what they're doing. That'southward just the best feeling there is."
When he'due south not traveling on his jitney to one of the more than 100 shows he stills does every year, Nelson splits his time between a home in Maui (where he hangs with friends like Woody Harrelson), and his ranch outside Austin, complete with an Old West town he named Luck, Texas.
When Schieffer dropped past, 3,000 fans filled the town for the Luck Reunion, the brainchild of Willie's great niece, Bobbie'south granddaughter, Ellee.
"I had grown up on this belongings," Ellee Fletcher told Schieffer. "Basically this is my backyard."
She said the Luck Reunion had started every bit a ane-mean solar day upshot: "Celebrating singers and songwriters who were kind of forging their path in the same kind of vein every bit Willie is. Just, y'all know, doing their own thing without compromise."
"A lot of people get to hear a lot of good music and hang out, take a good time," Nelson added. "So it'due south turned out to be real skilful."
Things didn't always turn out "real good" for Willie. Back in the '90s there was the niggling thing of back taxes he owed Uncle Sam.
"I gotta say," Schieffer noted, "you're the only guitar picker from Abbott, Texas that I always knew or heard of that owed the federal government $32 million!"
"It's kind of funny when you call up well-nigh it!" Nelson laughed.
"But I'grand sure it wasn't funny to y'all at the time."
He worked information technology out, and paid it off. Simply he never declared defalcation. "I don't believe in that," Nelson said. "You know, I believe if I owe some people some money, I want to pay them."
He's been arrested more than than one time for possession of marijuana.
"I want to ask you a lilliputian about pot," Schieffer asked.
"You lot got one?"
"No."
These days he'southward in the cannabis business in places where information technology'due south legal. Then why has he been such an advocate? "For myself, it's proficient for me," he said. "It keeps me from going off and doing crazy things. I tin can relax and play some music and sit down around and visit and human activity similar a grown up, I think."
Nelson one time said that his quaternary wife, Annie, married a amend human being than his other wives. "I did!" she laughed. "I got him later on everybody else sort of trained him."
They've been together more than 31 years.
And what's it like to be married to Willie Nelson? "It's non boring! It's never deadening. He has a lot of energy. There's 23 years between united states of america, just I think his goal is to wear me out so that we're both the same age!"
Schieffer asked Nelson, "You call back you lot'll ever retire?"
"What do yous want me, to quit? All I do is play music and a piffling golf game, and I don't desire to quit either one of those!"
For Willie Nelson the way to end wearing out is to speed up.
Schieffer noted, "Andy Rooney said one time, 'We don't enquire to go old. Nosotros just get old … And if you're lucky, y'all may get old, as well.' You lot and I have been pretty lucky!"
"Aye, we have," Nelson said. "Very lucky. Nosotros're still here. We woke up still not expressionless over again!"
To hear Willie Nelson perform "A Woman'due south Dearest" from "God's Trouble Child," click on the video thespian below:
For more info:
- "God's Trouble Kid" by Willie Nelson (Sony Legacy); Available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and iTunes
- willienelson.com
- Follow @WillieNelson on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube
Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/willie-nelson-still-not-dead-gods-problem-child/
0 Response to "Not Dead Again Today Willie Nelson"
Post a Comment