Willie Nelson (22 page)

Waylon Jennings was a fellow Texan who was even more outside the box than Willie was. Like Willie, he had been a disc jockey, first in Lubbock, Texas, near where he grew up, and at KCKY in Phoenix. When they met at the Adams Hotel in Phoenix, Willie, newly signed to RCA, was doing a one-nighter at the Riverside Ballroom. Waylon, on the verge of being signed to RCA by Chet Atkins, was enjoying a very sweet setup at JD’s, a giant nightclub in Phoenix near the campus of Arizona State University, with two dance floors and two bands. A different rock-and-roll band was booked downstairs every week for the college crowd. Upstairs, Waylon Jennings and his Waylors played their unique brand of country and western music mixed with rock and roll in front of more than a thousand customers a night six nights a week, each band member taking home a $1,200 weekly guarantee.

Waylon and Willie compared notes about their recording deals. Waylon was still signed to A&M Records in Los Angeles, which put out an album and a single of “Just to Satisfy You” with a version of the Ian and Sylvia folk song “Four Strong Winds” on the flip side, which was a local hit. Willie hadn’t gotten over how Monument Records had treated him. Waylon told Willie he was thinking of moving to Nashville. Willie half-jokingly offered to take over Waylon’s gig at JD’s if he left.

“He asked me what I thought about him going to Nashville, and when he told me what he was making, I told him he’d better stay where he was at,” Willie said. “I knew what I’d have to do out there to make the equivalent of what he was making. You have to gross a whole lot of money to come out with that kind of net income, and on the road, that’s not even a guarantee. But Waylon knew what he wanted to do.”

Waylon already had quite a story to tell. He’d gotten into the music business as a protégé of West Texas rock-and-roller Buddy Holly, who’d produced sessions on him in Clovis, New Mexico. Along with Tommy Allsup, Waylon was part of Buddy’s band on the Winter Dance Party tour. Scheduled to fly out with Buddy in a private plane after a show in Clear Lake, Iowa, on February 3, 1959, Waylon gave up his seat to J. P. Richardson—the Big Bopper—who had the hit “Chantilly Lace” and was feeling ill, while Tommy Allsup let Mexican American rocker Ritchie Valens, who was promoting his hit “La Bamba,” have his seat. Richardson, Valens, and Holly were killed when the plane crashed shortly after takeoff in a snowstorm. Waylon possessed a rich, vibrant voice and projected a magnetic presence onstage. He also was writing some splendid songs. He was a country boy through and through, but he played with a rock and roll swagger. Plenty of Buddy Holly had rubbed off on him.

Bobby Bare, one of the most popular singer-songwriters in the emerging folk-country subgenre, heard Waylon’s version of “Four Strong Winds” and recorded the song himself, charting number 3 as a country single. At Bare’s urging—-“He’s the best thing since Elvis,” Bare told RCA’s chief, Chet Atkins—Atkins signed Waylon to RCA and Waylon immediately moved to Nashville. Willie did not take over Waylon’s residency at JD’s.

RCA’s executives knew where they thought Waylon should be slotted, titling his debut
Folk-Country
. But the more records Waylon made and the more he understood how the system worked, the less he appreciated what RCA thought was best for him. As his record sales increased, his complaints grew louder. The Nashville Sound was cramping his style.

The two W’s from Texas were soul brothers. “We both liked each other, respected each other’s music and ideas, but our music wasn’t that similar,” admitted Willie. “It was the fact we both were pretty independent and insisted on doing it the way we wanted to do it that made us closer friends. It got to be fun to play games with the studios and with the record company and record with other artists from different companies at four in the morning that RCA didn’t know anything about and all of a sudden come out with a record and we’re all on it—that was fun.”

He was referring to “Poor Old Ugly Gladys Jones,” a joke song written by country comedian Don Bowman and Waylon that Waylon, Don, Bobby Bare, Jerry Reed, Willie, and others cut at RCA when nobody was looking.

Willie kept plugging away in the studio. In March 1966, the overwhelmed Chet Atkins farmed out Willie to staff producer Felton Jarvis, who had just started producing Elvis Presley, for four tracks. “I had about thirty-five artists and had hired some people to help me produce,” explained Chet. “There was a lot of mediocre stuff. But that’s the way we did it. Make a bunch of records and throw them out.”

Felton had a lighter touch, and Willie was nowhere near as intimidated by Felton as he was by Chet. When it came to picking guitar, no one was as good as Chet, so Willie often deferred to Chet’s judgment at his own expense. Felton accommodated Willie’s request to bring in Jimmy Day and Johnny Bush from his road band to join Jerry Reed, Velma Smith, Junior Huskey, and Jerry Smith in Studio B. The tracks became most of the album
Make Way for Willie Nelson,
one very mixed bag of music. Willie covered old standards like Hank Williams’s “Mansion on the Hill,” Cy Coben’s schmaltzy “Make Way for a Better Man,” Frankie Brown’s “Born to Lose,” and the ballad “What Now My Love?” as if he meant every word he sang. His own “One in a Row,” recorded in June with Johnny Bush and Wade Ray, was released as a single and worked its way into the Top 20, peaking at number 19 on the country singles chart in September, Willie’s first significant chart single since he was with Liberty Records. The album followed suit, entering the Top 10 and stalling at number 9 on the country albums chart in early 1967.

Album sales were a pittance from a performer’s standpoint. Unless you were someone huge like Johnny Cash, Buck Owens, or Merle Haggard, you couldn’t move enough units to get out of debt to your record label. For several years, Willie lived well off songwriter royalties from “Hello Walls,” “Crazy,” and “Funny How Time Slips Away,” but those had slowed to a trickle. Although Willie owned land, a tractor, and hogs, he was tight on cash, and whenever he had money, he spent it. His eye was on the road. Playing live gave him the greatest personal satisfaction. He didn’t feel whole unless he was on a stage in front of a crowd. And in order to do that, he had to have a single or an album to promote. “Nashville recording artist” was his calling card.

Chet Atkins produced the next album of all-Willie originals,
The Party’s Over and Other Great Willie Nelson Songs
. Jimmy Day and Johnny Bush returned to the studio to play steel and drums along with Grady Martin, the studio legend who’d been recording with Ray Price for years under Don Law’s tutelage until Law retired in 1967, Junior Huskey, Jerry Smith, Jerry Reed, and three violins, a viola, and a cello.

The material, which included “A Moment Isn’t Very Long,” “No Tomorrow in Sight,” “Hold Me Tighter” (cowritten with Hank Cochran), and “A Long Story Short (She’s Gone),” cowritten with Fred Foster, was solid. But except for “The Party’s Over,” a redo of the codified last call in a nightclub or bar with the phrase “turn out the lights,” it was not Willie’s most stellar work. “The Party’s Over” reached number 24 on the country singles chart. A follow-up single, “Blackjack County Chain,” written by Willie’s friend Red Lane, was released later that year with Floyd Tillman’s “Some Other World” on the flip. It was climbing the country singles chart at number 21 when radio stations started banning the record for its grisly content. The song tells the tale of a Negro chain-gang convict who wins his freedom by killing a sheriff with “thirty-five pounds of Blackjack County chain” to gain his freedom. Red Lane had originally offered the song to a rising young talent named Charley Pride, who was black. Pride, anticipating the potential controversy, wisely turned down the offer.

Charley Pride entered Willie’s life through the Willie Nelson Show package tour featuring Marty Robbins, Lefty Frizzell, and Bob Wills, with Tag Lambert and Hank Cochran and Jeannie Seely. “That was me and Crash Stewart’s production,” Willie said. “Nobody knew who in the hell I was, but we called it the Willie Nelson Show featuring Bob Wills, Marty Robbins, and the others.” There was a method to the madness. “Most of the audience didn’t know who I was but they knew who all those other folks were,” explained Willie, “and after the show, they knew who I was too.”

One night, Marty tried to hip Willie to a new singer who wanted to get on the tour. “His name is Charley Pride,” Marty told him, “and he only wants two hundred fifty a night, and his manager Jack Johnson is coming with him and they’ll share a room.” Willie knew who Marty was talking about. Crash Stewart had already been working on Willie, telling him, “He isn’t just a country singer, he’s a
black
country singer.”

“Never heard of him,” Willie said.

After Crash played him Charley’s single “Snakes Crawl at Night,” Willie turned more receptive.

“Don’t you worry about taking him into Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, all those places?” Crash wondered. “What do you think’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know,” Willie said, sensing another opportunity to stir up some shit for the sake of stirring up shit. “Let’s go see.”

Charley Pride’s first night on the Willie Nelson Show was in Dallas. Johnny Bush was fronting Willie’s band and sang two songs before he started introducing the stars of the show. When he’d met Charley backstage, Johnny realized his announcing chores would be a little trickier than normal. Country music was white folks’ music, never mind that Charley had grown up in Mississippi. No black man had ever been identified as a country music singer before; his label had wisely omitted sending out a publicity photograph to accompany his singles. Most country fans didn’t much cotton to the idea of a colored country singer. They were still chafing at new civil rights laws being enforced by the federal government, particularly in the South, where segregation was still embraced.

Johnny Bush gave Charley Pride a straight-up introduction: “Ladies and gentleman, here he is, the new singing sensation with the hit ‘The Snakes Crawl at Night.’ Let’s give a big Big D welcome to Country Charley Pride!”

The crowd cheered. The record was hot and many in the audience were familiar with it. Then Charley Pride came out from behind the curtain. The clapping stopped. Beads of sweat were visible on Charley Pride’s brow as he stepped to the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I know I look funny to y’all standing up here. Don’t let this permanent tan fool you. I’m a country singer and I hope you enjoy hearing it as much as I enjoy singing it. My favorite country singers are Ray Price, Jim Reeves, and Connie Smith.”

Afterwards at a jam at Dewey Groom’s Longhorn Ballroom, Willie encountered resistance from the owner. “Dewey didn’t want Charley on the bandstand,” Willie said. “So I got up on the stage and introduced Charley, had him come up on the stage. When he got there, I laid a big kiss on him, right on the mouth. Then he started singing and they loved it. Dewey didn’t know and didn’t understand the way it was supposed to be,” Willie said. Later that night, everyone went to Willie’s motel room and jammed. “The next morning I wished I would’ve had a camera,” Willie said. Charley Pride and Dewey Groom had both passed out on the same bed.

Willie never did think Charley’s race was a problem. “Music crosses concrete blocks; it goes right through everything,” he said. “I always felt that if they hear this guy and he’s good, the audiences didn’t care if he’s red, black, blue, yellow, striped. I know they don’t mean it [racial epithets], I know if they hear him, [even the worst racist] will say, ‘OK, well let this nigger in.’”

Willie took it upon himself to advocate on behalf of this outsider’s outsider and show the country music world that black folks wouldn’t bite or poison the purity of their music. He went out of his way to call Charley “Supernigger” in public places, neutralizing the power of the verbal insult. “I loved doing that and he loved it because it scared a lot of people and pissed off more people—it was shock value,” Willie said. “I’d yell at him from across the airport and we would always kiss when we’d see each other, so the rumors continue. I know that all the other guys out there who said the same thing under their breath, they just didn’t know.”

Resistance broke down, venue by venue. Corky Kuykendall, the co-owner of Panther Hall, showed up at Will Rogers Auditorium when the package show came through Fort Worth. He wanted some of the acts to come join Tony Douglas at Panther Hall afterwards. Willie, Johnny Bush, Jimmy Day, Jeannie Seely, and Charley Pride rode over in Willie’s car. When they arrived at Panther Hall, Corky Kuykendall pulled Willie aside. “Who’s that? I don’t want a nigger on the show,” he told him. Johnny Bush tried to intervene, telling him, “Corky, you don’t understand. This guy is dynamite.”

“It’s Tony’s show,” Corky said, washing his hands of the responsibility, “and Tony won’t allow no niggers on his show.”

They ignored Corky. Jimmy did his guitar playing. Jeannie went up and sang two songs. Johnny Bush sang just one song before introducing Country Charley Pride. Charley and Johnny started singing “Crazy Arms” and the house roared.

There was one downside to Willie’s boosting Charley’s rapid ascent. “I closed the show,” Willie said. “I thought I had put myself in there in a pretty good spot. But all of a sudden I was following Charley Pride. The crowd was screaming and yelling for Charley halfway through my set.”

Giving breaks to people like Charley Pride separated Willie from other entertainers. He seemed to go out of his way to lend a hand whenever he could. Willie delivered on his promise to produce Johnny Bush, sort of. He’d made the same promise to Jimmy Day, so, in the spirit of compromise, Willie Nelson produced two artists in one three-hour session. “That pissed me off,” Johnny Bush said. “Jimmy Day had no aspiration of becoming a singer. He was a steel player—a great steel player, one of my best friends. Well, half a session is better than no session.”

Paul, Jimmy Day, and Johnny Bush drove all night from Texas to make the recording session at Little Victor studio, the smaller studio in the RCA building where Elvis Presley recorded. Johnny sang an original composition, “Sound of a Heartache” b/w “A Moment Isn’t Very Long,” a Willie Nelson song. “My thinking was, if they saw Willie Nelson as songwriter, disc jockeys would play it,” Johnny said.