Bobbie Nelson
Little Sister BORN 1931
The singer and piano player Willie Nelson called ‘Little Sister Bobbie’ was actually his big sister – a role she took seriously on-stage and off. Born in Texas two years before Willie, she was, he said, “the most naturally talented of all the Nelsons”. At age five she was playing a pump organ in church. At 14 she toured with a travelling preacher. At 16 she played piano in her husband’s band, Bud Fletcher & The Texans, getting her 14-year-old kid brother the job as guitarist. For the last half-century, Bobbie toured with Willie on his never-ending tour – they shared a bus – and played on numerous albums, her melodic honky-tonk piano an important part of the Family Band sound. In 2007, Bobbie released her debut solo album, Audiobiography, the same year she was inducted into the Texas Music Hall of Fame.
“Bobbie was the most naturally talented of all the Nelsons.” WILLIE NELSON