Texas Outlaw Music, Singer-Songwriter, and Willie Nelson (1933.04.29)

HE WROTE “ON THE ROAD AGAIN” ON A BARF BAG.    Nelson’s 1980 hit, “On The Road Again,” was written aboard an airplane—on a barf bag. “I was on an aeroplane with Sydney Pollack and Jerry Schatzberg, who was the director of the movie Honeysuckle Rose,” Nelson told Uncut in 2014. “They were looking for songs for the movie and they started asking me if I had any ideas. I said, ‘I don’t know, what do you want the song to say?’ I think Sydney said, ‘Can it be something about being on the road?’ It just started to click in my head. I said, ‘You mean like, ‘On the road again, I can’t wait to get on the road again?’ They said, ‘That’s great. What’s the melody?’ I said, ‘I don’t know yet.’”

HE HAS BEEN PLAYING THE SAME GUITAR FOR NEARLY 50 YEARS.  Nelson has been playing Trigger, his beloved guitar (which he named after Roy Rogers’ horse), since 1969. “I’ve got to take good care of Trigger,” Nelson told Uncut Magazine in 2014. “He’s had a couple of problems. We’ve had to go in and do some work on the inside, build up the woodwork in there a little bit over the years. But Trigger’s holding up pretty good.”

HE USED TO BE A BIBLE SALESMAN.  Before he became a full-time musician in the mid-1950s, Nelson worked as a cotton picker (a gig he began as a child, working alongside his grandmother), disc jockey, and a Bible salesman.

Quotes:

There is only one map to the journey of life and it lives within your heart.

Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.

Be gentle with your words – you can’t take them back.

Be here. Be present. Wherever you are, be there.

When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.

Three chords and the truth – that’s what a country song is.

I like myself better when I’m writing regularly.

Waylon Jennings and I had a lot of fun recording together.

WILLIE NELSON ON KRNN, 4/29:  His songs endure, his work influences and his music entertains, Willie Nelson was born on this date in 1933. Please join us as Willie’s compositions provide our playlist on Crosscurrents, 4/29 at 8 am.