“No one should try to follow my phrasing,” Nelson writes in It’s a Long Story. He did not fit the traditional Nashville country music mold, and whenever producers tried to make him fit they only succeeded in stripping away the qualities that helped make him unique, such as his unusual manner of phrasing. However, despite these successes, Nelson’s own recordings fell on deaf ears during this period. READ MORE: How Patsy Cline and Willie Nelson Teamed up for Her Hit Song "Crazy" Two years later, Ray Price’s recording of his “Night Life” was also a Top 40 country hit. Patsy Cline's legendary rendition of "Crazy" became a Top 10 hit on both country and pop. 1 on the country charts and sold two million copies. The following year, two of Nelson's creations became hits for other artists - Faron Young's version of "Hello Walls" reached No. In 1960, Nelson settled in the country music capital of Nashville, Tennessee, where he found a job as a songwriter for Pamper Music, earning a salary of around $50 a week.
It was during this period that Nelson penned some of his finest early work, including "Night Life," "Crazy" and "Funny How Time Slips Away." Nelson moved around over the next few years, regularly playing gigs at local clubs and honing his songwriting craft. Early Songs: "Night Life," "Crazy," "Hello Walls" But Nelson had not lost his passion for music, which he pursued by working as a disc jockey for various radio stations. While pursuing his studies, he took odd jobs to make ends meet, including selling encyclopedias door to door. Unsure of where to turn next, Nelson briefly enrolled in a farming program at Baylor University. The Korean War was raging but his military career was short-lived when persistent back problems from previous injuries led to a medical discharge nine months later.
“At the same time, when I was invited to play music in a beer joint, I said to hell with all the objections raised by the bible-thumpers.”Īfter graduating from Abbott High School in 1950, Nelson enlisted in the United States Air Force and first stationed at Lackland in San Antonio. “I was ten, a member in good standing of the Methodist Church and a devoted grandson,” Nelson writes.
A job at odds with his Christian upbringing.
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Don’t know where I’d have gone if I could have, but I had the itch early on–the itch to look beyond the end of the road.”Ī few years later, he started playing his first professional gigs with a local polka band. … Mama Nelson had to tether toddler Willie to a pole in the yard to keep him from wandering off. Though family and faith were and remain top priorities for Nelson, in his 2015 memoir It’s a Long Story: My Life, the self-described guitar “picker” recalls that church “did not calm my restless and rambunctious soul. He sold the song to his friend Paul Buskirk, a guitar teacher, for $50 in 1959. His famous gospel song “Family Bible” draws from his early exposure to religious music. Nelson got his first guitar at the age of six - mere months prior to the death of his beloved grandfather - and he began writing his own poetry and early musical compositions shortly thereafter.
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