Willie Nelson

Willie Hugh Nelson (born April 30, 1933) is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie, combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust, made Nelson one of the most recognized artists in country music. He was one of the main figures of outlaw country, a subgenre of country music that developed at the end of the 1960s as a reaction to the conservative restrictions of the Nashville sound. Nelson has acted in over 30 films, co-authored several books, and has been involved in activism for the use of biofuels and the legalization of marijuana.
Born during the Great Depression, and raised by his grandparents, Nelson wrote his first song at age seven and joined his first band at ten. During high school, he toured locally with the Bohemian Fiddlers as their lead singer and guitar player. After graduating from high school in 1950, he joined the Air Force but was later discharged due to back problems. After his return, Nelson attended Baylor University for two years but dropped out because he was succeeding in music. During this time, he worked as a disc jockey in Texas radio stations and a singer in honky tonks. Nelson moved to Vancouver, Washington, where he wrote "Family Bible" and recorded the song "Lumberjack" in 1956. In 1960, he signed a publishing contract with Pamper Music which allowed him to join Ray Price's band as a bassist. During that time, he wrote songs that would become country standards, including "Funny How Time Slips Away", "Hello Walls", "Pretty Paper", and "Crazy". In 1962, he recorded his first album, And Then I Wrote. Due to this success, Nelson signed in 1965 with RCA Victor and joined the Grand Ole Opry. After mid-chart hits during the end of 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, and the failure to succeed in music, Nelson retired in 1971 and moved to Austin, Texas. The rise of the popularity of Hippie music in Austin motivated Nelson to return from retirement, performing frequently at the Armadillo World Headquarters.
In 1973, after signing with Atlantic Records, Nelson turned to outlaw country, including albums such as Shotgun Willie and Phases and Stages. In 1975, he switched to Columbia Records, where he recorded the critically acclaimed album, Red Headed Stranger. The same year, he recorded another outlaw country album, Wanted! The Outlaws, which he recorded with Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter, and Tompall Glaser. During the mid 1980s, while creating hit albums like Honeysuckle Rose and recording hit songs like "On the Road Again", "To All the Girls I've Loved Before", and "Pancho & Lefty", he joined the country supergroup The Highwaymen, along with fellow singers, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson. During 1990 Nelson's assets were seized by the Internal Revenue Service, that claimed that he owed US $32,000,000. It was later discovered that his accountants, Price Waterhouse did not pay Nelson's taxes for years. The impossibility of Nelson to pay his outstanding debt was aggravated by weak investments made by him during the 1980s. Nelson released in 1991 The IRS Tapes: Who'll Buy My Memories?, the profits of the double album, destined to the IRS and the auction of Nelson's assets cleared his debt by 1993. During the 1990s and 2000s, Nelson continued touring extensively, and released albums every year. Reviews ranged from positive to mixed. Nelson explored genres such as reggae, blues, jazz, and folk. Nelson made his first movie appearance in the 1979 film, The Electric Horseman, followed by other appearances in movies and on television.
Nelson is a major liberal activist and the co-chair of the advisory board of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, which is in favor of marijuana legalization. On the environmental front, Nelson owns the bio-diesel brand Willie Nelson Biodiesel, which is made from vegetable oil. Nelson is also the honorary chairman of the Advisory Board of the Texas Music Project, the official music charity of the state of Texas.


Willie Nelson - Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain



Willie Nelson - On the Road Again



Willie Nelson - Gravedigger



Snoop Dogg f. Willie Nelson - Superman




Early life



Willie Nelson's high school football portrait
Willie Nelson was born in Abbott, Texas during the Great Depression on April 30, 1933 to Myrle Marie (née Greenhaw) and Ira Doyle Nelson.[2] The Nelson family had moved from Arkansas in 1929, looking for work. Nelson's grandfather, William, worked as a blacksmith, while his father worked as a mechanic. His mother left soon after he was born,[4] and his father remarried and moved away, leaving the grandparents, who both studied music at night via a mail-order course, to bring up Nelson and his sister Bobbie.[5] Nelson's grandfather bought him a guitar when he was six, and taught him a few chords;[3] and with his sister Bobbie he sang gospel songs in the local church.[6] He wrote his first song when he was seven,[7] and played the guitar for the local band Bohemian Polka at age nine.[8] During the summer, like most of Abbott's inhabitants, the family picked cotton.[9] As Nelson didn't like picking cotton, starting at age thirteen and continuing through high school, he earned money by singing in local dance halls, taverns, and honky tonks. Nelson was influenced musically during his childhood by Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, Ernest Tubb, Django Reinhardt, Ray Price and Hank Snow.[10]
Nelson attended Abbott High School where he was a halfback in the school football team, and also played basketball as a guard, and as a shortstop in baseball.[11] While still at school he sang and played guitar in The Texans, a band formed by his sister's husband, Bud Fletcher.[8] Nelson raised pigs for the Future Farmers of America organization.[2] He joined the United States Air Force for eight to nine months in 1950.[12] In 1952, he married Martha Matthews. Seeking a stable income, he took a job as a disc jockey at local radio stations in addition to booking shows.[13] He had short stints with KHBR in Hillsboro, Texas and later with KBOP in Pleasanton, Texas.[14][15] He studied agriculture at Baylor University from 1954 to 1956,[16] where he joined the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity,[17] but dropped out to pursue success in music.[18]
Music career

Beginnings
In 1956, Nelson moved to Vancouver, Washington to begin his formal musical career. His first record, "No Place For Me" included Leon Payne's "Lumberjack" on the b-side,[19] but was not successful.[20] Nelson continued working as a radio announcer and singing in Vancouver clubs.[21] He sold the song "Family Bible" for US$50 to a guitar instructor, and the song turned into a hit for Claude Gray in 1960.[22] Nelson moved to Nashville in 1960, but no label signed him. Although most of his demos were rejected, thanks to his songwriting and Hank Cochran's help, he signed a publishing contract with Pamper Music. After Ray Price recorded Nelson's "Night Life", Nelson joined Price's touring band as a bass player. While playing with Price and the Cherokee Cowboys, Nelson's songs became hits for other artists, including "Funny How Time Slips Away" (Billy Walker), "Hello Walls" (Faron Young), "Pretty Paper" (Roy Orbison), and, most famously, "Crazy" (Patsy Cline),[21] which became the biggest jukebox hit of all time.[23]

"Hello Walls"

Written by Willie Nelson, Hello Walls, was a hit for Faron Young in 1961, and the song that gave Nelson national recognition as a songwriter. He recorded the song for his debut album And Then I Wrote.
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Nelson signed with Liberty Records in 1961 and released several singles, including "Willingly" and "Touch Me", a duet with his soon-to-be second wife, Shirley Collie.[24] He recorded his first album And Then I Wrote.[25] His singing voice continued to underwhelm Nashville producers. Demo recordings from his years as a songwriter for Pamper Music were later discovered and released as Crazy: The Demo Sessions in 2003.[26]
In 1965, Nelson moved to RCA Victor Records, signing a contract for US $10,000 per year.[27] He recorded from January to April, resulting in Country Willie – His Own Songs. The same year he joined the Grand Ole Opry[28] and released a string of standard, Nashville Sound-inspired country albums, mostly produced by Chet Atkins.[29] He had a number of mid-level chart hits throughout the 1960s and early 1970s before retiring and moving to Austin, Texas in 1971. Austin's burgeoning hippie music scene (see Armadillo World Headquarters) pulled Nelson back to music. His popularity in Austin soared as he played his own brand of country music marked by country, folk and jazz influences.[30] In 1969, Nelson faced a dilemma, as RCA requested that Nelson renew his contract ahead of schedule. Nelson wanted to reject the deal, but if he did that, RCA would not release his latest recordings. He signed Neil Rashen as his manager to negotiate with the label, who got RCA to agree to end Nelson's contract upon repayment of US$14,000. Nelson signed with Atlantic Records for US$25,000 per year, becoming the label's first country artist.[27]
Outlaw country

"Shotgun Willie introduction"

Introduction of the song "Shotgun Willie", opening track of the album of the same name that marked a change of style from Nelson's earlier recordings.
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His first release with Atlantic Records was Shotgun Willie (1973), which earned excellent reviews but did not sell well. The album led Nelson to a new style, later stating that Shotgun Willie had "cleared his throat".[31] His next album, Phases and Stages, released in 1974, was a concept album about a couple's divorce, inspired by his own experience. On side one of the record, he sings from the viewpoint of the man, and on the other side, from the viewpoint of the woman.[32] The album included the hit single "Bloody Mary Morning" and a duet of "After the Fire is Gone" with Tracy Nelson.[33]
Nelson then moved to Columbia Records, where he signed a contract that gave him complete creative control, made possible by the critical and commercial success of his previous albums.[34] The result was the critically acclaimed, and massively popular 1975 concept album Red Headed Stranger. Although Columbia was reluctant to release an album with primarily a guitar and piano for accompaniment, Nelson and Waylon Jennings insisted. The album included a cover of Fred Rose's 1945 song "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain", that had been released as a single previous to the album, and became Nelson's first number one hit as a singer.[35]


L-R: Kris Kristofferson, Nelson, and Waylon Jennings at Nelson's 4th of July Picnic 1972
Jennings was also achieving success in country music in the early 1970s, and the pair were combined into a genre called outlaw country, since it did not conform to Nashville standards.[36] The album Wanted! The Outlaws in 1976 with Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser cemented the pair's outlaw image and became country music's first platinum album.[37] Later that year Nelson released The Sound in Your Mind (certified gold in 1978 and platinum in 2001)[38] and his first gospel album Troublemaker[39] (certified gold in 1986).[40] In 1978, Nelson released two more platinum albums, Waylon & Willie, a collaboration with Jennings that included "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys", a hit single written and performed by Ed Bruce.[41] His next album, Stardust, an album of standards from the American songbook, was produced by Booker T. Jones.[42] Though observers predicted that Stardust would ruin his career, it went platinum the same year.[43] Nelson continued to top the charts with hit songs during the late 1970s, including "Good Hearted Woman", "Remember Me",[44] "If You've Got the Money I've Got the Time" and "Uncloudy Day".[45]
1980s–90s

"On the Road Again"

Part of the hit album Honeysuckle Rose. On the Road Again peaked number one on Hot Country Songs in 1980.
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During the 1980s Nelson recorded a series of hit singles including "Midnight Rider", a 1980 cover of the Allman Brothers song which Nelson recorded for The Electric Horseman,[46] the soundtrack "On the Road Again" from the movie Honeysuckle Rose,[47] and a duet with Julio Iglesias titled "To All the Girls I've Loved Before". Pancho & Lefty, a duet album with Merle Haggard,[48] and WWII, with Jennings, came out in 1982,[49] while Take it to the Limit debuted in 1983, also with Jennings.[50]
In the mid-1980s, Nelson, Jennings, Kristofferson, and Johnny Cash formed a group called The Highwaymen.[51] They achieved platinum record sales and toured the world.[52] Meanwhile, he became more involved with charity work, such as singing on We are the World in 1984.[53] In 1985, Nelson had another success with Half Nelson, which featured duets with artists such as Ray Charles, Lacy J. Dalton, Haggard, Iglesias, George Jones, Mel Tillis, and Neil Young.[54]
In 1980, Nelson performed on the south lawn of the White House. The September 13 concert featured First Lady Rosalynn Carter and Nelson in a duet of Ray Wylie Hubbard's "Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother".[55] Nelson frequently visited the White House according to his biography, Willie Nelson: An Epic Life, where, watched by the Secret Service, he smoked marijuana, which he nicknamed the "big fat Austin torpedo", on the White House roof.[56] Carter denied knowing about the marijuana and never discussed drug use with him. Friend and fan Carter told Rolling Stone: "All the good things I did as president, all the mistakes I made—you can blame half of that on Willie."[57]
In 1990, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) seized most of Nelson's assets, claiming that he owed US$32,000,000. It was later discovered that his accountants, Price Waterhouse, had not been paying Nelson's taxes for years. In addition to the unpaid taxes, Nelson's situation was worsened by the weak investments he had made during the early 1980s.[58] Nelson's attorney negotiated a settlement with the IRS in which he paid US$6,000,000, although Nelson did not comply with the agreement.[59]
Nelson released The IRS Tapes: Who'll Buy My Memories? as a double album, with all profits destined for the IRS. Many of his assets were auctioned and purchased by friends, who donated or rented his possessions to him for a nominal fee. He sued Price Waterhouse, contending that they put him in illegal tax shelters.[60] The lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount[61] and Nelson cleared his debts by 1993.[58]
Later career


Nelson, and his guitar "Trigger", performing at Cardiff on January 25, 2007
During the 1990s and 2000s, Nelson toured continuously and released albums that generally received mixed reviews, with the exception of 1998's critically acclaimed Teatro, which was produced by Daniel Lanois and featured supporting vocals by Emmylou Harris.[62] He performed with other acts including Phish[63] and Johnny Cash and on the VH1 Storytellers series.[64]
Nelson performed a duet of "Beer for My Horses" with Toby Keith on the latter's 2002 album Unleashed.[65] The song was released as a single with an accompanying video in 2003. The single topped the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts for six consecutive weeks[66] and the video won an award for "Best Video" at the 2004 Academy of Country Music Awards.[67] A USA Network television special celebrated Nelson's 70th birthday and featured many celebrities.[68] Nelson released The Essential Willie Nelson as part of the celebration.[69]
On January 9, 2005, Nelson headlined the Tsunami Relief Austin to Asia concert to benefit the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, which raised an estimated US$75,000 for UNICEF.[70] In 2011 Nelson participated in the concert Kokua For Japan, a fundraising event for the victims of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan which raised US$1.6 million.[71]
In 2007, Nelson performed with jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis in a concert at Lincoln Center,[72] a date commemorated the following year with a release entitled Two Men with the Blues, that peaked number one in Billboard's Top Jazz Albums and number twenty on the Billboard 200.[73] In 2009 Nelson and Marsalis joined again with Norah Jones in a tribute concert to Ray Charles. The covers of the Charles' songs were recorded during two consecutive shows and released in the 2011 album Here We Go Again: Celebrating the Genius of Ray Charles.[74]
In 2010, Nelson released Country Music, a compilation of standards produced by T-Bone Burnett.[75] The album peaked number four in Billboard's Top Country Albums, and twenty on the Billboard 200.[76] It was nominated for Best Americana Album in the 2011 Grammy Awards.[77]
Music style

Nelson uses a variety of music styles to create his own distinctive blend of country music - a hybrid of jazz, pop, blues, rock and folk.[78] His "unique sound", which uses a "relaxed, behind-the-beat singing style and gut-string guitar",[79] and his "nasal voice and jazzy, off-center phrasing",[78] has been responsible for his wide appeal, and has made him a "vital icon in country music",[78] influencing the "new country, new traditionalist, and alternative country movements of the '80s and '90s".[78]
Guitars


Willie Nelson's guitar, Trigger, has been signed by several of Nelson's friends
In 1969, the Baldwin company gave Nelson an amplifier and a three-cord pickup electric guitar, that Nelson played with such intensity he broke it. He sent it to be repaired in Nashville by Shot Jackson, who told Nelson that the damage was too great. Jackson offered him a Martin N-20 nylon-string acoustic and, at Nelson's request, moved the pickup to the Martin. Nelson purchased the guitar unseen for US$750 and named it after Roy Rogers' horse "Trigger".[80] The next year Nelson rescued the guitar from his burning ranch.[81][82][83]
Constant strumming with a guitar pick over the decades has worn a large sweeping hole into the guitar's body near the sound hole—the N-20 has no pick-guard since classical guitars are meant to be played fingerstyle instead of with picks.[23] Its soundboard has been signed by over a hundred of Nelson's friends and associates, ranging from fellow musicians to lawyers and football coaches.[80] In 1991, during his process with the IRS, Nelson was worried that Trigger could be auctioned off, stating: "When Trigger goes, I'll quit". He asked his daughter, Lana, to take the guitar from the studio before any IRS agent got there, and bring it to him on Maui.[82] Nelson then hid the guitar in his manager's house until his debt was paid in 1993.[80]
In 1998 the C. F. Martin & Company announced a limited edition of one hundred N-20WN Signature Model guitars made out of Brazilian rosewood with Nelson's collaboration.[84]
Activism

Nelson is active in a number of issues. Along with Neil Young and John Mellencamp, he set up Farm Aid in 1985 to assist and increase awareness of the importance of family farms,[85] after Bob Dylan's comments during the Live Aid concert that he hoped some of the money would help American farmers in danger of losing their farms through mortgage debt.[86] The first concert included Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, B.B. King, Roy Orbison, among others,[87] and raised over $9 million for America's family farmers.[88] Besides organizing and performing in the annual concerts, Nelson is the president of the board of Farm Aid.[89]
Nelson is a co-chair of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) advisory board.[90] He has worked with NORML for years, fighting for marijuana legalization. In 2005 Nelson and his family hosted the first annual "Willie Nelson & NORML Benefit Golf Tournament", leading to a cover appearance and inside interview in the January 2008 issue of High Times magazine.[91] After his arrest for possession in 2010, Nelson created the Tea Pot party under the motto "Tax it, regulate it and legalize it!".[92][93]
Nelson supported Dennis Kucinich's campaign in the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries. He raised money, appeared at events, and composed the song "Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?", criticizing the war in Iraq.[94] He recorded a radio advertisement asking for support to put musician/author Kinky Friedman on the ballot as an independent candidate for the 2006 Texas gubernatorial election.[95] Friedman promised Nelson a job in Austin as the head of a new Texas Energy Commission due to his support of bio-fuels.[96] In January 2008, Nelson filed a suit against the Texas Democratic Party, alleging that the party violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution by refusing to allow co-plaintiff Kucinich to appear on the primary ballot because he had scratched out part of the loyalty oath on his application.[97]
In 2004, he and his wife Annie became partners with Bob and Kelly King in the building of two Pacific Bio-diesel plants, one in Salem, Oregon and the other at Carl's Corner, Texas (the Texas plant was founded by Carl Cornelius, a longtime Nelson friend and the namesake for Carl's Corner).[98] In 2005, Nelson and several other business partners formed Willie Nelson Biodiesel[99] ("Bio-Willie"), a company that is marketing bio-diesel bio-fuel to truck stops. The fuel is made from vegetable oil (mainly soybean oil), and can be burned without modification in diesel engines.[100]
Nelson is an advocate for better treatment for horses and has been campaigning for the passage of the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (H.R. 503/S. 311) alongside the Animal Welfare Institute.[101] He is on its Board of Directors and has adopted a number of horses from Habitat for Horses.[102] In 2008, Nelson signed on to warn consumers about the cruel-and illegal-living conditions for calves raised to produce milk for dairy products. He wrote letters to Land O'Lakes and Challenge Dairy, two of the major corporations that use milk from calves raised at California's Mendes Calf Ranch, which employs an intensive confinement practice that was the subject of a lawsuit and campaign brought by the Animal Legal Defense Fund.[103]
Personal life



In 2008, Nelson reopened the truck stop "Willie's Place" near Hillsboro, Texas.
Willie Nelson has married four times and fathered seven children.[104] His first marriage was to Martha Matthews; it lasted from 1952 to 1962, and produced three children: Lana, Susie, and Billy. The last committed suicide in 1991.[105] The marriage was marked by violence, with Matthews assaulting Nelson several times.[106][28] Nelson's next marriage was to Shirley Collie in 1963.[107] The couple divorced in 1971, after Collie found a bill of the maternity ward of a Houston hospital charged to Nelson and Connie Koepke for the birth of Paula Carlene Nelson.[106] Koepke and Nelson married the same year and had two daughters, Paula Carlene and Amy Lee. Following a divorce in 1988, he married his current wife, Annie D'Angelo, in 1991. He had two sons, Lukas Autry and Jacob Micah, with her.[108] Nelson traces his genealogy to the American Revolutionary War, in which his ancestor John Nelson served as a major.[109]
While swimming in Hawaii in 1981, Nelson's lung collapsed. All of his scheduled concerts were canceled and he was taken to the Maui Memorial Hospital.[110] Nelson temporarily stopped smoking cigarettes each time his lungs became congested, and resumed when the congestion ended.[111] In 2008 he started to smoke with a carbon-free system to avoid the effects of smoke in his lungs.[83][112] In 2004 Nelson underwent surgery for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, as he had damaged his wrists by continuously playing the guitar.[113] By the recommendation of his doctor, he canceled his scheduled concerts and only wrote songs during his recovery.[114]
Nelson has been arrested several times for marijuana possession. The first occasion was in 1974, in Dallas, Texas.[115] Twenty years later, in 1994, highway patrolmen found a marijuana cigarette in his car near Waco, Texas; the resulting court appearance causing him to cancel his appearance at the Grammy awards.[112] While traveling to Ann W. Richards' funeral in 2006, Nelson, along with his manager and his sister, Bobbi, were arrested in St. Martin Parish, Louisiana and charged with possession of marijuana and hallucinogenic mushrooms.[116] Nelson received six months probation.[117] On November 26, 2010, Nelson was arrested for possession of six ounces of marijuana found in his tour bus while traveling from Los Angeles to Texas. He was released after paying bail of US$2,500.[118] Prosecutor Kit Bramblett supported not sentencing Nelson to jail due to the possession of a small amount, Bramblett sentenced him to pay a US$100 fine and told Nelson that he would have him sing "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" for the court. Judge Becky Dean-Walker stated that Nelson only had to pay the amount of the fine, but did not require him to perform the song, explaining that the prosecutor was joking.[119] Nelson's lawyer Joe Turner reached an agreement with the prosecutor. Nelson was set to pay a US$500 fine to avoid a two-year jail sentence with a 30-day review period, which in case of another incident would end the agreement.[120]
Steakhouses
In 2002, Nelson became the official spokesman of the Texas Roadhouse, a chain of steakhouses. Nelson heavily promoted the chain and appeared on a special on Food Network. The chain installed Willie's Corner, a section dedicated to him and decked out with Willie memorabilia, at several locations.[121] In 2008, Nelson reopened Willie's place, a truckstop in Hillsboro, Texas. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court allowed Nelson to invest in it. The establishment currently has about 80 employees[122] and is used as a concert hall with a bar and a 1,000 square feet (93 m2) dance floor.[123]
Legacy

See also: List of awards and nominations received by Willie Nelson


The Willie Nelson boulevard in Austin, Texas
Nelson is widely recognized as an American icon.[124][125] He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1993,[126] and he received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1998.[127][128]
In 2003 Governor Perry signed bill #2582, introduced by State Representative Elizabeth Ames Jones and Senator Jeff Wentworth,[129] which funded the Texas Music Project, the state's official music charity. Nelson was named Honorary Chairman of the Advisory Board of the project.[130] In 2005, Democratic Texas Senator Gonzalo Barrientos introduced a bill to name 49 miles (79 km) of the Travis County section of State Highway 130 after Nelson, and at one point 23 of the 31 state Senators were co-sponsors of the bill.[131] The legislation was dropped after two Republican senators, Florence Shapiro and Wentworth, objected, citing Nelson's lack of connection to the highway, his fundraisers for Democrats, his drinking, and his marijuana advocacy.[132]
An important collection of Willie Nelson materials (1975–1994) became part of the Wittliff collections of Southwestern Writers, Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas. The collection contains lyrics, screenplays, letters, concert programs, tour itineraries, posters, articles, clippings, personal effects, promotional items, souvenirs, and documents. It documents Nelson's IRS troubles and how Farm Aid contributions were used. Most of the material was collected by Nelson's friend Bill Wittliff, who wrote or co-wrote Honeysuckle Rose, Barbarosa and Red Headed Stranger.[133]
In April 2010, Nelson received the "Feed the Peace" award from The Nobelity Project for his extensive work with Farm Aid and overall contributions to world peace.[134] On June 23, 2010 he was inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry.[135][136] Nelson is an honorary trustee of the Dayton International Peace Museum.[137] In 2010, Austin, Texas renamed Second Street to Willie Nelson Boulevard. The city also planned to honor him with a life-size statue,[138] to be placed at the entrance of Austin City Limits' new studio. The non-profit organization Capital Area Statues commissioned sculptor Clete Shields to execute the project.[139]
For many years, Nelson's image was marked by his red hair, often divided into two long braids partially concealed under a bandanna. In the April 2007 issue of Stuff Magazine Nelson was interviewed about his long locks.[140] "I started braiding my hair when it started getting too long, and that was, I don't know, probably in the 70's." On May 26, 2010, the Associated Press reported that Nelson had cut his hair,[141] and Nashville music journalist Jimmy Carter published a photograph of the pigtail-free Nelson on his website.[142] Reportedly, he wanted a more maintainable hairstyle, as well helping him stay cool more easily at his Maui home.[143]
Nelson's touring and recording group, the Family, is full of longstanding members, including his sister Bobbie Nelson, drummer Paul English, harmonicist Mickey Raphael, Bee Spears, Billy English (Paul's younger brother), and Jody Payne.[144] Willie & Family tours North America in the bio-diesel bus Honeysuckle Rose IV, which is fueled by Bio-Willie.[145]
Works

As well as recording sixty seven studio albums, Nelson has appeared in over thirty films and TV shows. His acting debut was in the 1979 movie, The Electric Horseman, followed by appearances in Honeysuckle Rose, Thief, and Barbarosa.[146]
In 1988 his first book, Willie: An Autobiography, was published.[147] The Facts of Life: and Other Dirty Jokes, a personal recollection of tour and musical stories from his career, combined with song lyrics, followed in 2002.[148] In 2005 he co-authored Farm Aid: A Song for America, a commemorative book about the twentieth anniversary of the foundation of Farm Aid.[149] His third book, The Tao of Willie: A Guide to the Happiness in Your Heart, was published in 2006.[150] In 2007 a book advocating the use of bio-diesel and the reduction of gas emissions, On The Clean Road Again: Biodiesel and The Future of the Family Farm, was published.[151] His next book, A Tale Out of Luck, published in 2008 and co-authored by Mike Blakely, was Nelson's first fictional book.[152]
Recordings
Further information: Willie Nelson albums discography and Willie Nelson singles discography
Films
Further information: Willie Nelson filmography
Books
Willie: An Autobiography, Simon & Schuster, 1988, with Bud Shrake
The Facts of Life and Other Dirty Jokes, Random House, 2002
The Tao of Willie: A Guide to the Happiness in Your Heart, Gotham, 2006, with Turk Pipkin
A Tale Out of Luck (a novel), Center Street, 2008, with Mike Blakely
On The Clean Road Again: Biodiesel and The Future of the Family Farm, Fulcrum Publishing, 2007
Farm Aid: A Song for America, 2005, Rodale Books, foreword by Willie Nelson
See also

Austin portal
Inductees of the Country Music Hall of Fame
List of country musicians
Music of Austin
List of best-selling music artists
Reference from Wikipedia.com