<\/p>\n
Willie Nelson\u2019s new memoir is out. You\u2019ll buy It\u2019s a Long Story: My Life<\/em> without any elaboration from me. Because Willie. Because the red-headed stranger has actually been our friend for years. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n So let\u2019s get straightaway to the bullets that emerge from this latest of many books about his life, music, and philosophies. He doesn\u2019t say so, but we all know that Willie Nelson is the closest thing to a Texas icon we\u2019ve had since Davy Crockett\u2014both of whom wisely fled Tennessee for Texas. Davy had a storied if truncated career here, but Willie blew the roof off. While his songwriting speaks for itself, through the narrative of his memory we get a real sense of this citizen-musician\u2019s larger impact. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2022 Willie gave Austin an enduring musical presence and maverick validity. His rejection of corporate control of artists and attempts to lock him into a genre became guideposts to a generation of pickers and singers.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u2022 His reach went far beyond country. He played with everyone worth a pack of guitar strings. Just the casual references in his book document an array from Patsy Cline to Django Reinhardt to Sinatra to Ray Charles.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u2022 He created Farm Aid. Willie drew critical attention to the vile corporate economics that threaten America\u2019s most fundamental industry and family way of life: feeding the rest of us. This was a populist benchmark.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u2022 He championed the positive effects on body and mind of pot\u2014and in particular as an alternative to alcohol, coke, and pills. Musicians live and often die in a world filled with addiction. Finding another way was no a small feat, despite the jokes and occasional arrests. But his stubborn path yet may prove more beneficial to both health and justice than has been realized.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u2022 People genuinely liked Willie and still do\u2014for any man, let alone a musician, that is saying something. He doesn\u2019t claim to be a saint, but he does have a soul, and he tries to abide by his faith and a sense of what is right.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u2022 He has a home on Maui, near the hippie\/surfer town of Paia. My sister, a math teacher, lives nearby in Makawao, and so did my mom, born in New Braunfels to find her final home in Maui and to be thrilled when Willie moved there. That Willie got the vibe of the island says much about him.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u2022 Okay, that was a personal digression, but it leads to a larger point: Willie is all about family, in his case as extended as they come. Granted, in his first marriages he sometimes ske-diddled when he should have ske-daddled, but he always owned it \u2014 no excuses for his failings. Throughout, he maintained a constant love for all his wives, his children, and his friends.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u2022 He fought the law and the law didn\u2019t actually win. Call it a draw, but Willie\u2019s battle with the IRS over past-due taxes ended up a lot friendlier than it had any right to. It was how Willie, and his close friends and advisors, chose to handle it.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Reading the memoir begs the question of how the resilient, driven little kid from Abbott turned into an eighty-two-year-old popular legend instead of a narcissistic jerk, as is too often the case with extraordinary celebrity. Buddy Cannon, his \u201cmain go-to writing partner\u201d these days, nailed it in a conversation with Willie about an unexpected recent recording success:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNo big mystery,\u201d said Buddy. \u201cIt\u2019s a hit because it\u2019s your philosophy. People like the way you think.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBut I\u2019m thinking that my thinking isn\u2019t all that clear.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what they like about it. Neither is theirs.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Review of Willie Nelson’s new autobiography<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[96,183,12,8,2,15,111],"class_list":["post-198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-autobiography","tag-history","tag-lonestarreview","tag-lonestarliterarycom","tag-music","tag-texasauthor","tag-texasbook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n