Willie Nelson

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During the 60's the smooth Nashville Sound was in its ascendant and willie found himself becoming increasingly disillusioned with big business methods, hankering as he was to mark as a singer rather than as a songwriter and preferably on his own terms. A spell living in Texas, while his Nashville home was being rebuilt after a fire, did nothing to salve Willies restlessness. By the end of the 70s he was determined to get out of his RCA contract and with the help of one of Neil Reshen (afterwards Nelsons manager) he landed a new contract from Atlantic, which company was just opening a Nashville office. However country music was new to Atlantic who had built their reputation on black music. But with Atlantic's Jerry Wexler producing in New York, Willie came up with Shotgun Willie & Phases and Stages, the second particularly a new intense country sound displaying a deep sense of lonesome identity, making no concessions whatsoever to modern Nashville. Nelson had by now settled in Austin with his third wife, Connie. He became a godfather there - a whiff of hardnose country authenticity and some dedicated but basically folk-influenced young artists. Texas had always been the centre for barroom music, and now the tradition was back home again in a slightly different, but nonetheless intense, way. The glossy magazines began to home ion on the new phenomenon. By the time Atlantic's Nashville operation had folded and Willie signed with Columbia, for whom he made 'Red Headed Stranger' & The Sound in Your Mind. Like Phases & Stages, Red Headed Stranger was a concept album, but even more personal. It threw up the national cross-over hit single 'Blue Eyes Cryin' in the Rain' and established Willie Nelson as a nationally known figure. Willie. recognized as the unofficial Mayor of Austen, reconciled hip and redneck musical interests and helped lead a new explosion of interest in country music. Teaming up with fellow Texan, Waylon Jennings, they topped the charts in 1976 with Good Hearted Woman and were both featured on the compilation album 'Wanted: The Outlaws' the first certified platinum album in country music, and so started the outlaw movement. Home | Back | Next