He has just received two Grammys again, continues to record new records and is going on tour: Willie Nelson is celebrating his 90th birthday this Saturday. In the USA, the country legend – trademark: headband and pigtails – has long been considered an icon.
Musician Jack White once said: “No one represents America like this man”. Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, June Carter – most other stars of the country scene are already dead.
The award-winning musician was born in 1933 in the East Texas province in the middle of the global economic crisis. He started playing the guitar and writing songs at an early age, but the beginnings of his career were bumpy. Until the breakthrough in 1975, when Nelson landed a huge success after a few failures and two failed marriages in the liberal capital Austin and with the album “Red Headed Stranger”. “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” became his first single to top the US charts.
In the decades that followed, Willie Nelson sang about the American way of life (“On the Road Again”), fueled the cowboy myth (“Beer for My Horses”), charmed women (“Always on My Mind”) and performed with Johnny Cash , Julio Iglesias and Kris Kristofferson. He acted in dozens of films, campaigned for farmer’s rights and the legalization of marijuana.
In the early ’70s, he joined a group of musical rebels defying the Nashville country music establishment. They defied the dictates of the music producers in Tennessee, didn’t accept their contracts and produced hits non-stop, songs like “A Good Hearted Woman” or “Ramblin’ Man” or the album “Wanted! The Outlaw”.
Nelson remained tireless even in old age, in his autobiography “My Life: A Long Story” he describes himself as the “eternally restless”. He recently told the magazine “Parade” that the old doesn’t intimidate him, it’s just a number. That’s why he’s still going on tour: “I’ll be one of the oldest bastards out there,” he says. “But as long as people show up, so will I.” (dpa)
