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Gee, Ain’t It Funny (How Time Just Slips Away)
Happy 88th birthday to one of my perennial favorites, the one-and-only (other) red-headed stranger in my life, Willie Nelson.
May your career last another 65+ years, and may you continue to compose instant classics for yourself and others to sing:
And the song that always has the same effect on me as the La Marseillaise scene in Casablanca. It’s a relic of my youth, and of the fact that the only other person involved departed this earth decades ago:
Happy Birthday, Willie. Thanks for Never. Giving. In. All the way up to your 108th (I think), original and most recent album, released earlier this year.
A song (also from a recent album) which you didn’t write, but which perfectly expresses your oeuvre:
Do you have a favorite “Willie Nelson” moment? (I know my sister does. Perhaps she (who isn’t–yet–a Ricochet member, will reveal it on my blog.)
PS: Yes, time slips away, regardless, or irregardless at the case may be, of what we think should be its natural progression. You may think you’re immortal. But you’re not. Love someone? Tell them. Hug them. Don’t let them get away (which they have a regrettable tendency to do, either under their own steam or through the influence of others). Life’s too short to waste affection, whomever we’re inclined to lavish it on, and no matter how deserving, or undeserving of it that person may be. So don’t waste it. Mean it. At the end of the day, the most important thing that can be said of us is that we love–and that we were loved. Nothing else really matters:
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Published in General
I especially liked his duet with Julio Iglesias on the Carson Show:
https://www.wideopencountry.com/johnny-carson-willie-nelson/
Forget the marijuana fetishizing, the man is a national treasure.
Here’s a toe-tapper:
And, if you’ve never heard his amazing, atmospheric, panoramic album “Teatro,” check this out. The album sounds like nothing else in his catalog. (Produced by Daniel Lanois.):
the guy can sing almost anything:
Sometimes he does other people’s songs, and they can be very well done:
One group of guys I used to play with from time to time started off every ride to a gig with the same song.
Then there is this one:
Janet and I heard them live in concert at the Texas Livestock Show and Rodeo back in 1985 or 86. Greatest country combo every.
His music is genius but I just can’t stand the man.
This and this.
I was subjecting two of my best friends to Willie back in 1977. I was enrolled in Northeastern in Boston, in an MS Accounting/MBA joint program. Mike was getting his Law degree at New England Law School and Bucky, his Masters at Harvard School of Public Health. We were all north shore commuters. Bucky and I both had vehicles, but since my Bug had something of a back seat and his GMC pickup did not, I did the driving. So every day, I picked up Bucky, then Mike and we headed into Boston. I had an 8 track and a few tapes, Willie, Hank, Creedence, Dylan, Waylon and since it was my car, my tunes. Initially, there were complaints, but in time, Bucky and Mike were converted into something like fans, rare beings in Boston at the time.
Now Bucky lives somewhere in NJ and has had a successful career in the oil and gas business as an engineer and industrial hygenist. I’ve transitioned from corporate finance to writerdom.
Mike rose from assistant DA in MA Essex County to the bench and passed away a couple of years ago, far too young, of brain cancer. He was much loved and respected.
Willie has regaled us all the way.
This was my introduction to Willie:
It’s hard to believe it’s been almost 50 years.
Half of them are still alive. Who thought Willie would be one of them?
Maybe my favorite Willie song I think is Pancho and Lefty with Merle Haggard.
Truth be told I love the original by Towns Van Zandt even more.
Back in the mid-1970s I had quit a full time job in favor of enrolling in a PhD program. I was very busy, but had time off at odd hours. One afternoon I was home and clicked on PBS (which had not yet totally beclowned itself) and some program had this guy I had never heard of before playing songs from his new album, called “Red Headed Stranger”. Blew me away; I went out and bought the vinyl album the next day and have been a fan ever since.
In the 1980s I got to see him live, and full of energy. My wife was pregnant with our first kid, and she said he was dancing through the entire concert. It was a great concert.
From the 70s into the 90s, I consumed a fair amount of PBS and NPR because they introduced me to good music I would not have heard otherwise. But their increasing stridency made me quit doing that.
The last good musician NPR introduced me to is James Hunter. I woke up to the radio and heard Sam Cooke, except it wasn’t Sam Cooke with that accent. I bought his CD The Hard Way and realized the truth of what he said on NPR: He stole his style from Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, and some other guy I can’t remember now. All he took credit for was his writing. Fine R & B guitarist as well.
Wonderful stories and clips! Thank you.
I was in college in Austin in the mid 1970s.
We thought that when we died we would go to Willie’s House. :)
Saw him many times… Attended most of his July 4 picnics. One very memorable show was ’75, ’76, I can’t recall for sure. The CMA was having a meeting in Austin and Willie played at Soap Creek Salon, a venue hardly larger than a living room. Great show. I got to shake hands with Charley Pride and Darryl Royal.
Great days. As my old roommate always says, “We were there.”
https://youtu.be/jPHhmABR0ew
Ten Crazy Facts About Willie Nelson. And another musical interlude:
:
I enjoy this little-bit-more-energetic version:
You know, he would have been good in westerns films, if Hollywood still did western films.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xvRWnLXNyw
“Barbarosa” (1982). Good movie. Recognized some of the locations they used in Big Bend National Park.
I love this duet with Lee Ann Womack.