BIG VALLEY, BIG TALENT
Willie Nelson delivers the cool factor
He’s been a model for me, career-wise, because he’s got a super wide fan base — cowboys and hippies and bikers … Something about his approach rubbed off ...
Having been to more than half the Big Valley Jamborees in its 25-year lifespan, here’s something easy to declare: Willie Nelson — playing Friday — is the coolest act they’ve ever booked.
That’s nothing against BVJ, mind you — with his penchant for dope, helping out farmers, troubles with the man and, of course, a catalogue of songs which include some of the most recognizable music ever to beam into space from planet earth, Nelson is seriously untouchable when you compare him to almost anyone else alive.
Into the modern age with collaborations with Snoop Dogg, his brilliant 1998 album Teatro or a record of reggae songs, Countryman, Nelson’s a true outlaw in the sense of being hard to pin down precisely. Born during the Great Depression in 1933, raised by his grandparents, a brief stint in the U.S. Air Force ended with lucky-for-us back problems, and as a honky tonk-occupying musician he started spinning records on Texas radio stations.
You might know the Patsy Cline song Crazy he wrote, and he played bass for the legendary Ray Price back in the ’60s. He “retired” from music in 1972 to Austin, at which point his career really took off — with the magnificent albums Shotgun Willie, the essential divorce album Phases and Stages and the mighty Red Headed Stranger.
The 1978, jazzy crossover album Stardust was an international hit, certified quintuple platinum — it included covers as diverse as Hoagy Carmichael’s Georgia on My Mind and Duke Ellington’s Don’t Get Around Much Anymore, plus classic takes of Blue Skies, All of Me and On the Sunny Side of the Street.
Nelson was memorable starring in the 1982 western Barbarosa, but a bigger moment for him came when On the Road Again was released in 1980 on the soundtrack Honeysuckle Rose, earning him a Grammy for best country song. And of course we all know about the Highwaymen, his collaboration with Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson.
It’s here one might stop and say if there was ever a towering country music Mount Rushmore, while you might argue forever who would be the four stone-hewn faces — Hank Williams, Dolly Parton, George Jones … maybe Garth Brooks if you really want a tussle with the oldtimers — Nelson and Cash would be guaranteed spots on that landmark.
CORB LUND
As long as we’ve been friends, Alberta country musician Corb Lund and I have shared a deep affection for Nelson, and the Cardston-ranch-living singer-songwriter has mentioned him many times in interviews. While Lund isn’t playing BVJ — this year, anyway — he’s happy to talk about his 84year old hero in terms without any reservation.
“He’s got huge balls. He’s been a model for me, career-wise, because he’s got a super wide fan base — cowboys and hippies and bikers all in one room together. Something about his approach rubbed off, I think,” says Lund, whose set list has frequently included Seven Spanish Angels, On the Road Again and Me and Paul.
Lund, especially on his early records, had a jazziness one could compare to Nelson’s, and notes the elder “was a Django Reinhardt guy — heavy into him for a while.”
More importantly: “He’s unafraid to take from wherever, he’s obviously not in a box of any kind. They say he made the Red Headed Stranger album, which is hyper stripped down, and brought it into the label and they said, ‘Those are good demos.’ And he said, ‘No, this is the record.’ And he was right, it was a huge hit. And then Tougher Than Leather was similar.
“And then, he comes in with an album of weird jazz standards, country-style, and they’re like, ‘I don’t know man, you kind of have a good thing going.’ And then Stardust was a massive hit.”
“He’s entirely unencumbered. And he had his period of massive country music stardom, but in addition to that he’s an icon.
“He’s grown beyond country music. He’s probably one of the top ten personages that a person in Japan could point on a chart and recognize. Elvis. Willie Nelson. Jesus. He’s just so unique. Print that,” Lund says with a laugh. “That’ll be good for me.”
Lund has crossed paths with Nelson, but never met him. He was supposed to open up for him in Australia, but the Nelson cancelled due to a “throat problem.”
The Alberta singer does have a good Willie story, mind you.
“About a year and half a go I opened for Merle (Haggard) down in Dallas. It turned out to be one of his last shows. The first thing I noticed was looking at his set list and mine — Merle Haggard bag of hits. I was just like, ‘I want to quit now,’” Lund laughs, but of course soldiered on.
“We’re doing sound check and they were trying to figure out, do they set up a different monitor system? And then one of the techs said, ‘Just give him Willie’s line.’
“So Willie apparently had a dedicated channel in Merle’s board if he showed up. I got to sing on Willie’s line at a Merle Haggard show,” he says, laughing.
While Friday tickets are sold out, $240 general admission weekend festival passes are still available at BVJ’s site.
Whatever your favourite Willie Nelson song may be, one of the most important lessons about him comes out of the fact it’s probably a different one than the person next to you. One woman’s I Never Cared for You is another man’s Bloody Mary Mary Morning, as it were.
But in a modern musical ecosystem where “down by the river,” “the good stuff,” some mention of a vehicle brand and how tight a girl’s jeans are written ad nauseam in brief-hit lyrics, remember that Willie Nelson ended up enduring mainly because of one lasting quality: being different.