{"id":81789,"date":"2018-04-29T19:35:10","date_gmt":"2018-04-29T16:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ngradio.gr\/?p=81789\/"},"modified":"2018-04-29T19:35:10","modified_gmt":"2018-04-29T16:35:10","slug":"willie-nelson-85-visit-king-night-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ngradio.gr\/en\/news-el\/music-en\/willie-nelson-85-visit-king-night-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Willie Nelson at 85: A Visit With the King of Night Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

As he reaches his 85th year, Nelson is writing, touring and smoking more than ever. His band and family members weigh in on what drives the Red Headed Stranger.<\/p>\n

“What else we got?” Willie Nelson asks. He’s sitting with his famous battered guitar Trigger at his recording studio, located on the\u00a0Cut ‘N Putt golf course he owns in Spicewood, Texas. He’s deep into a session of Frank Sinatra covers for a future tribute album. Nelson’s producer Buddy Cannon has given him plenty of chances to call it a day (especially because the singer was up until 4 a.m. playing poker), but Nelson keeps asking the control room to cue up more tracks. At one point, last night’s poker guests \u2013 Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey \u2013 pop in, but even they can’t distract Nelson. “We’ll let you focus, Willie,” Harrelson says with a smile, leaving the room.<\/p>\n

Nelson remains focused as he reaches his 85th birthday, which he celebrates on April 29th. He’s still sharp: “Sometimes I forget lyrics to new songs or whatever, but normally I can remember them pretty good,” he says. During a break from recording, he says the Sinatra release is actually a ways off; before that, he will release an album of new songs,\u00a0Last Man Standing,\u00a0<\/i>his 19th new album of the last decade, and the continuation of his most prolific writing kick since the Seventies. After\u00a0Last Man Standing<\/i>, he will reissue his 1973 gospel album\u00a0The Troublemaker,\u00a0<\/i>with songs, like “Will The Circle Be Unbroken?” which still close his live show.
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\n“<\/i>I want to re-release that one before the Sinatra album, to give me a chance to finish it,” he says. Nelson also still maintains a touring schedule that puts younger acts to shame, playing about 100 dates a year, two weeks on, two weeks off. The reason for the workload is simple. “I just enjoy playing,” he explains, “whether it’s on the stage, here in the studio, or wherever.”<\/p>\n

The new song “Last Man Standing” is a tongue-in-cheek rocker about Nelson\u2019s conflicted feelings about his status as country’s elder statesman: “I don’t want to be the last man standing \/ Or wait a minute, maybe I do \/ If you don\u2019t mind I\u2019ll start a new line and decide after thinking it through.” “I was thinking about Merle, Leon Russell, Ray Price, Johnny Cash \u2013 all those guys gone on,” he explains. “You kind of wonder [about death]. I’ve been around a long time.”<\/p>\n

Nelson’s influence is often overlooked because of his image as a weed-smoking cowboy caricature \u2013 the guy who shows up in\u00a0Austin Powers<\/i>\u00a0or\u00a0admitting to Larry King<\/a>\u00a0that he’s stoned on the air. But he’s a lot more than that. He is the most unique and versatile country artist of all time \u2013 a cowboy singer with jazz phrasing, playing Django Reinhardt guitar licks on a beat-up classical guitar. In the same way Miles Davis is considered the quintessential jazz artist because he explored almost every iteration of the genre over 50 years, Nelson has seen through every chapter of country music \u2013 first as a radio host and honky-tonk bandleader in the Forties and Fifties, then as a slick crooner in Sixties countrypolitan Nashville, then as the face of the outlaw country movement, something that happened after Nelson moved back home to Texas, grew his hair out and stopped caring about the charts. Nelson shook his career up once again by recording the first standards album,\u00a0Stardust<\/i>, against his label’s wishes. It went quintuple platinum.<\/p>\n

None of this is on Nelson\u2019s mind as he sits down to start recording, his cowboy hat resting on his guitar stand, a vape pen and his iPhone on the table next to him. After the room clears out, Nelson’s cursing can be heard in the control room. \u201cGoddamnit,\u201d he says, \u201cI spilled my fucking coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nelson\u2019s pace is\u00a0<\/b>only surprising because just a few months ago he was questioning whether he would play in public again at all. In January, he walked offstage in California and canceled two months of dates, retreating to his place in Maui. Fans feared the worst. \u201cI had the flu for, like, three weeks,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd that wasn\u2019t no fun. I was a little uncertain about coming back and whether I could still do a show \u2013 it had been so long.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first show back was in St. Augustine, Florida on February 27th. The band didn’t know what to expect. \u201cWillie came out of the gate just smoking,\u201d says his harmonica player, Mickey Raphael. “We were all a bit nervous coming back out after so much time off, but the first night felt like we had never stopped playing. I couldn’t have been happier. I’m thinking to myself, ‘Ye of little faith.’ He blew us all away and all we had to do was hold on.” Asked what was going through his mind, Nelson is less sentimental: “I was just trying to remember \u2018Whiskey River,\u2019\u201d he says with a smile. \u201cWe did it then; we did three or four more good shows shows in a row, so I got my confidence back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tour wrapped at the Luck Reunion, a mini-festival at Nelson\u2019s home, a mock old-West town he had built for the 1986 movie the\u00a0Red Headed Stranger<\/i>. After a day that included Kurt Vile and Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats, Nelson\u2019s \u201994 pickup could be seen snaking down his long dirt driveway, past fields of horses, pulling up next to the stage. Nelson strapped on Trigger and led an audience through singalongs like \u201cCrazy,\u201d \u201cMama Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” and “On the Road Again.\u201d (I wondered if Nelson had any reservations about opening his home to 3,000 fans, and he laughed. \u201cNah, that’s cool,\u201d he says. \u201cIt’s a good place to play because it\u2019s close to the house.”) Nelson noted that a lot of young faces had probably never seen him play before. He also had fun because he was joined by his kids, Lukas and Micah. \u201cThere\u2019s no better feeling,\u201d he says, \u201cthan having kids working with you and doing a good job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nelson\u2019s sons have had to reckon what it means to follow in the footsteps of a country legend. Lukas makes what he calls \u201ccowboy hippie surf rock,\u201d full of twang and occasionally even a Willie cover. Micah strays into stranger territory, making albums ranging lo-fi freak-folk to prog-metal with his various projects. I once saw him stun a New Jersey crowd while he was opening for his father with insane volumes and a guitarist who did contortions between arpeggios. Micah says it all makes sense if you listen to his dad: \u201cHe was doing things that really weren\u2019t considered mainstream. Like to me,\u00a0Red Headed Stranger\u00a0<\/i>[from 1975] is a punk record. In the context of what country music was supposed to be back then: very overproduced and shiny and rhinestones and strings. And he came out with\u00a0Red Headed Stranger<\/i>, the label thought it was a demo. He was just breaking down those barriers and fearlessly doing his thing. For me I realized at a certain point, I\u2019m not gonna try to conform to what people might expect me to be doing because of my lineage. That would be dishonoring it. For me to fearlessly do my thing and just be myself \u2013 I can\u2019t think of any other way to respect and honor his legacy. Because that\u2019s what\u00a0he<\/i>\u00a0did.\u201d<\/p>\n