Latest / DISGRACELAND / Willie Nelson (Pt 1): A Shootout, a House Fire, and the Ballad of the Red-Headed Stranger

Transcript

Willie Nelson (Pt 1): A Shootout, a House Fire, and the Ballad of the Red-Headed Stranger · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
0:23
Speaker 1: Willie Nelson are insane, broke, and depressed. He almost joined
0:29
Speaker 1: the twenty seven Club on a Nashville street before he'd
0:32
Speaker 1: even sold a single song. He drank, smoked, and cheated
0:36
Speaker 1: his way through multiple marriages. He was nearly beaten to
0:40
Speaker 1: death by an angry husband in a parking lot. He
0:43
Speaker 1: wielded a shotgun and a rifle during a shootout on
0:46
Speaker 1: his own property, And after ten years of trying to
0:49
Speaker 1: make it on music Row, he had the courage and
0:52
Speaker 1: the confidence to start all over again after a fire
0:55
Speaker 1: threatened to destroy the world. He was living in a
0:58
Speaker 1: world that was made better by Willie Nelson's great music,
1:03
Speaker 1: music that dared to challenge the boundaries of a country
1:06
Speaker 1: politan mandate and in turn redefined an entire genre. Unlike
1:11
Speaker 1: that clip, I played a few at the top of
1:13
Speaker 1: the show that wasn't great music. That was a preset
1:17
Speaker 1: loop for my mellotron called Mantavanni Mind Meld m McKay two.
1:24
Speaker 1: I played you that loop because I can't afford the
1:26
Speaker 1: rights to Tears of a Clown by Smokey Robinson and
1:29
Speaker 1: the Miracles and Why would I play you that specific
1:33
Speaker 1: slice of sad on the inside cheese? Could I afford it?
1:37
Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America on
1:41
Speaker 1: December twenty third, nineteen seventy And that was the day
1:45
Speaker 1: that Willie Nelson's house caught fire, a near tragic moment
1:49
Speaker 1: that closed one chapter of his life and gave way
1:52
Speaker 1: it a new phases and stages. On this part one
1:57
Speaker 1: of a special two part episode of drinking, smoking and cheating,
2:01
Speaker 1: angry husbands, shootouts, fires, and Willie Nelson. I'm Jake Brennan
2:08
Speaker 1: and this is disgrace Land. The preacher returned home to
2:31
Speaker 1: an empty house, but his head was far from empty.
2:35
Speaker 1: It was full of suspicion and jealousy, fear and rage,
2:40
Speaker 1: and that eternal struggle good and evil. The light in
2:43
Speaker 1: the dark, it was cold. He pulled a match from
2:48
Speaker 1: the pocket of his long black coat, struck it against
2:51
Speaker 1: a wooden table, and lit an oil lantern. He called
2:54
Speaker 1: out his wife's name. Silence, called out again, Nothing, just
3:00
Speaker 1: the sound of his own breathing and the beating of
3:02
Speaker 1: his own heart. His pulse quickened as he walked through
3:06
Speaker 1: the house with the lantern in his hand. First, the
3:09
Speaker 1: living room, and then the bedroom. She wasn't there, She
3:13
Speaker 1: wasn't missing. The preacher knew exactly where she was and
3:18
Speaker 1: exactly what she was doing. He'd known for months. He
3:22
Speaker 1: had that sixth sense, that gift. It was why people
3:26
Speaker 1: came to him for guidance and comfort, and they prayed
3:29
Speaker 1: with him and asked him to hold them in his thoughts. Tonight, however,
3:34
Speaker 1: he wasn't thinking about the trials and tribulations of his congregation.
3:38
Speaker 1: He had one thing, and one thing only on his mind.
3:42
Speaker 1: He picked up his double barreled shotgun, turned off the
3:45
Speaker 1: oil lantern, and walked out the front door. Then he
3:50
Speaker 1: mounted his black stallion and rode into town. Willie Nelson
3:59
Speaker 1: was on the again, but not back to California, where
4:02
Speaker 1: the job market was as dry as cracked Texas soil.
4:06
Speaker 1: Someone once told him California love Texas DJs. Maybe so
4:11
Speaker 1: San Diego didn't want anything to do with him, not
4:14
Speaker 1: as a DJ and not as a singer. He wasn't
4:17
Speaker 1: heading back to Oregon either. Sure, the gigs were plentiful,
4:20
Speaker 1: and the locals gotta throw out of here in a
4:22
Speaker 1: cotton picking snuff dip in tobacco two and stump Jumping, Gravy,
4:25
Speaker 1: Sop and coffee pot, Dodge and Dump Adeaton, Frog Gig
4:27
Speaker 1: and Hilly Billy DJ to take over the airways. But
4:30
Speaker 1: Oregon was in Texas. It wasn't his market, the people
4:34
Speaker 1: weren't his people, and he certainly wasn't heading back to
4:36
Speaker 1: the buckets of Blood in Fort Worth or way the
4:39
Speaker 1: hell down to Houston, where he wrote something like what
4:42
Speaker 1: half a dozen tunes easy in the span of a week,
4:44
Speaker 1: or two songs like Nightlife, Funny, how time Slips Away, Crazy,
4:49
Speaker 1: I Gotta get drunk. They just came to him, one
4:52
Speaker 1: after the other, and while he was out driving or
4:55
Speaker 1: walking around the way of the world, pressing down that
4:58
Speaker 1: no work, no hope, and three kids waiting at home
5:02
Speaker 1: waiting on him to make something happen. The only thing
5:05
Speaker 1: happening though, with these songs, these fucking great songs, at
5:10
Speaker 1: least he thought. So. He tried to sell them to
5:13
Speaker 1: a band leader at the Esquire ball Room for ten bucks. Apiece.
5:16
Speaker 1: Guy wouldn't buy them, not because they weren't good, because
5:19
Speaker 1: they were good. The guy didn't want to screw really over,
5:22
Speaker 1: So he recorded one for Pappy Daily and maybe Pappy's boy,
5:26
Speaker 1: George Jones would like it, but Pappy hated it, said
5:29
Speaker 1: it wasn't country. Well, fuck Pappy Daily and fuck Houston.
5:34
Speaker 1: This time it would be different. This time Willie was
5:38
Speaker 1: going in a new direction. He had to get out
5:40
Speaker 1: of Texas. So he dropped Martha and the kids off
5:43
Speaker 1: of Martha's folks place in Waco, and then he headed
5:46
Speaker 1: northeast and his beat up Puke Green Buick, who was
5:49
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty and Willie Nelson was twenty seven years old.
5:53
Speaker 1: He'd done the door to door thing, sold vacuum cleaner,
5:56
Speaker 1: sewing machines, encyclopedias. Now it was time to say something
6:00
Speaker 1: that really mattered, something he was good at. It was
6:03
Speaker 1: time to sell some songs for more than ten bucks apart.
6:07
Speaker 1: And anyone who is anyone knew that if he wanted
6:09
Speaker 1: to sell some country songs, you went to one place. Nashville.
6:15
Speaker 1: Willy had been writing songs since he was ten, playing
6:18
Speaker 1: in bands since before he hit puberty. Nashville, though, that
6:22
Speaker 1: was where you leveled up. Music city. Home of the Ryman,
6:25
Speaker 1: where WSM's fifty thousand watt clear channel signal broadcasts the
6:29
Speaker 1: Grand Old Opry from coast to coast. Home of Owen
6:32
Speaker 1: Bradley's quants at Hut and Chad Atkins RCA Studio B
6:36
Speaker 1: the place where they called the best pickers, the A team.
6:39
Speaker 1: If you weren't on the A team, you're rather busting
6:42
Speaker 1: your ass to get on the A team, or you
6:43
Speaker 1: were grinding it out on the road or on one
6:45
Speaker 1: of the many honky tongs strewn along Broadway. Maybe that's
6:48
Speaker 1: why I took Willy until he was twenty seven to
6:50
Speaker 1: go there. He had to work up the courage to
6:52
Speaker 1: prove that he really could write songs and get paid
6:55
Speaker 1: to do it. And now he had it, not just
6:57
Speaker 1: courage but confidence. He pulled into Nashville with a smile
7:01
Speaker 1: on his face. He had arrived, but Nashville didn't want him.
7:06
Speaker 1: Each door he opened slam shut in his face. Heads
7:10
Speaker 1: shook side to side. Thanks, but no thanks. Willie's songs
7:14
Speaker 1: were too weird. The way he sang behind or ahead
7:17
Speaker 1: of the bead. It was some weird jazz shit just
7:19
Speaker 1: wasn't country, Sure as hell wasn't the Nashville sound. Willie
7:23
Speaker 1: was distraught now what he felt humiliated, and not just
7:28
Speaker 1: because he couldn't sell a tune, Because when Martha and
7:30
Speaker 1: the kids finally arrived, she had to start waitressing just
7:33
Speaker 1: so they could afford their twenty five dollars a week trailer.
7:37
Speaker 1: The whole situation made them resent each other, so they
7:40
Speaker 1: drank both of them, but Willie, especially whiskey River takes
7:43
Speaker 1: my mind, and they fought screamed. Martha knew Willy was
7:47
Speaker 1: sleeping around. He told her that he wasn't up to
7:49
Speaker 1: doodly ship, but said it with some horse lipsticks smeared
7:52
Speaker 1: across his face. She responded by biting his finger right
7:56
Speaker 1: down to the bone. Willie nursed his wounds and drowned
7:59
Speaker 1: his was like a country song. At Tutsi's Orchard Lounge
8:02
Speaker 1: in downtown Nashville, the Hockey Talks owner Tutsi Bess knew
8:07
Speaker 1: all the major players in town, which she endeared herself
8:10
Speaker 1: to the nobody's as well guys like Willy who came
8:12
Speaker 1: to town with nothing but empty pockets in a dream.
8:15
Speaker 1: Songwriters met up at Tootsies to have polls, jam sessions,
8:18
Speaker 1: to test out songs and get peer feedback, and empty
8:21
Speaker 1: more than a few mugs of flagstaff in the process.
8:25
Speaker 1: One night, Roger Miller would be picking out dangy on
8:27
Speaker 1: a flat top. Another night, Hank Cochran played a new
8:30
Speaker 1: composition called I Fall to Pieces, and Willie became a regular.
8:34
Speaker 1: He got friendly with the other songwriters, He plucked out
8:37
Speaker 1: the tunes he was peddling, and he drank on nights
8:40
Speaker 1: that there were no guitar polls. He sat at Tutsy's
8:42
Speaker 1: bar and looked out the window across the street to
8:45
Speaker 1: the hitching post where Martha was waiting tables. He knew
8:48
Speaker 1: other men flirted with her, and he knew that she
8:50
Speaker 1: flirted back. He didn't like the thought of it, even
8:53
Speaker 1: if he was engaged in his own duet toly shit.
8:56
Speaker 1: He watched as a light snow fell down on Broadway late.
9:01
Speaker 1: He poured the contents of his mug down his throat,
9:03
Speaker 1: just one more, and then another. He was shit faced,
9:07
Speaker 1: his mind raised in the fights with Martha, the struggles
9:10
Speaker 1: as a songwriter. What was the point of it all?
9:13
Speaker 1: What was a darkness on the face of the earth
9:15
Speaker 1: enough to make a guy feel permanently lonely? Willie got
9:19
Speaker 1: up from the bar and stumbled out into the cold night.
9:22
Speaker 1: He was alone on the sidewalk, no traffic, just stillness.
9:26
Speaker 1: He was so drunk he didn't realize he wasn't wearing
9:29
Speaker 1: a coat. He stepped off the sidewalk and then just
9:32
Speaker 1: laid down right in the middle of the Broadway. He
9:35
Speaker 1: stared straight up into the night sky, and the snow
9:39
Speaker 1: kept falling. Would a car come by, would see him
9:43
Speaker 1: and slam on its brake, or would the snow obscure
9:46
Speaker 1: him there on the ground. Was he ready to die?
9:49
Speaker 1: Did he want to live? The question swirled around in
9:53
Speaker 1: his head, one after the other, and honestly, he had
9:56
Speaker 1: no answers for any of them. He simply felt calm,
10:01
Speaker 1: ready to accept whatever fate had in store. Turns out,
10:06
Speaker 1: fate did not plan to run Willie Nelson over the car. Instead,
10:10
Speaker 1: he got up and dusted himself off and walked back
10:13
Speaker 1: into Tutsies. Kept that, kept picking and singing, kept grinning,
10:18
Speaker 1: no matter how he felt on the inside. Hank Cochran
10:22
Speaker 1: really liked what he heard, and soon he took Willie
10:24
Speaker 1: to audition at Pamper Music, Hank's music publishing firm. Willie
10:29
Speaker 1: played them Crazy and Funny, How Time Slips Away. Pamper
10:32
Speaker 1: was impressed, but they didn't have the budget to hire
10:35
Speaker 1: another songwriter. Hank told him they could pay Willy using
10:38
Speaker 1: the rays they had recently given him that man fifty
10:41
Speaker 1: dollars a week. Hank tried to write with Willy, but
10:45
Speaker 1: it was obvious from the start that Willy didn't collaborate.
10:48
Speaker 1: He wrote alone, and he wrote different, wrote simple, wrote
10:52
Speaker 1: what was right in front of him, Like this feeling
10:54
Speaker 1: he'd had ever since he arrived in Nashville, vulnerability to spare,
10:59
Speaker 1: and this room was sitting in now these walls. Some
11:02
Speaker 1: days it felt like all a fella had to talk
11:05
Speaker 1: to were these four walls. The first thing Willy wrote
11:09
Speaker 1: while under contract at Pamper Music was a hit. Varren
11:12
Speaker 1: Young took Hello Walls to number one on the country
11:15
Speaker 1: charts in nineteen sixty one, and a few months later
11:18
Speaker 1: Willie got his first royalty check, three thousand dollars Hello Greenbacks,
11:24
Speaker 1: How things go for you Today? Willie could hardly believe it.
11:28
Speaker 1: There was his name in parentheses right below the song
11:31
Speaker 1: title on the label of a Capitol Records forty five.
11:35
Speaker 1: Willie Nelson could write a Nashville hit, but he could
11:38
Speaker 1: never have written what was about to happen Next, the
12:07
Speaker 1: preacher found his wife's horse tied outside the one saloon
12:11
Speaker 1: in town. He dismounted and tied his stallion to the
12:14
Speaker 1: same post. He walked inside, shotgun in hand. Drunks ran
12:19
Speaker 1: their sloppy mouths. Piano players spun out a melody from
12:23
Speaker 1: the corner. Smoke hung from the ceiling, and the moment
12:27
Speaker 1: he came through the swinging doors, all eyes were on him.
12:30
Speaker 1: He was a sight, a man of God, and an
12:33
Speaker 1: establishment like this, a house of vice, a den of sin.
12:37
Speaker 1: The preacher saw his wife there against the bar, one
12:41
Speaker 1: arm around another man, and the preacher was expecting the site,
12:45
Speaker 1: but still it hurt to see it. She returned his gaze,
12:48
Speaker 1: and the preacher thought she would give him this look
12:50
Speaker 1: of regret, panic, that she would beg for forgiveness. But
12:54
Speaker 1: she didn't. She just looked at him like a stranger,
12:58
Speaker 1: his coat as dark as a forsaken, his hair as
13:01
Speaker 1: red as the flames in the saloon's fireplace. The preacher
13:04
Speaker 1: didn't speak. He lifted up his shotgun, pointed it directly
13:08
Speaker 1: at the man standing next to his wife, and pulled
13:11
Speaker 1: the trigger off. The man's chest ripped open as he
13:15
Speaker 1: was blown backwards. Blood splattered all over the bar and
13:18
Speaker 1: all over the preacher's wife, who was now screaming. Everyone
13:21
Speaker 1: in the saloon ducked for cover. The preacher swung open
13:24
Speaker 1: the hinge of the shotgun and dumped out the two
13:25
Speaker 1: smoking shells. He reloaded and snapped the double barrel shut.
13:29
Speaker 1: He raised the shotgun again and this time aimed it
13:32
Speaker 1: at his wife. She was crying now, weeping, tears running
13:36
Speaker 1: down her face. She held her hands up. She begged
13:39
Speaker 1: for her life. Now she was sorry, Now she was penitent.
13:44
Speaker 1: Too little, too late, the preacher aimed the shotgun at
13:48
Speaker 1: his wife and then pulled the trigger one more time.
13:57
Speaker 1: Martha Nelson was yelling at her husband that line cheating,
14:01
Speaker 1: no good scoundrel. Willie Nelson didn't deny it, guilty as charged,
14:06
Speaker 1: he yelled back. She wasn't listening to him, not anymore.
14:10
Speaker 1: She shot back the two figures of whiskey in her
14:12
Speaker 1: glass and then hurled the empty glass at Willy's head.
14:15
Speaker 1: Willie ducked. His friend, Hank Cochran, was standing right behind him.
14:19
Speaker 1: He took the glass in the face. It shattered, broken glass,
14:23
Speaker 1: sliced Tank's face, blood all over the bathroom floor, and
14:26
Speaker 1: Martha had no regrets. Neither did Willi when he left
14:28
Speaker 1: his wife of ten years standing there and instead took
14:31
Speaker 1: his buddy hand to the emergency room. Willy knew this
14:35
Speaker 1: day would come. It was the one thing he could
14:38
Speaker 1: actually predict that his hound dog behavior would land him
14:41
Speaker 1: in hot water with the missus. The rest of it,
14:44
Speaker 1: though he couldn't have imagined it. Varren Young's recording of
14:50
Speaker 1: Hello Walls made him rich, but Patsy Klein's recording of
14:53
Speaker 1: his song Crazy made him even richer. The checks just
14:57
Speaker 1: kept coming. Willy took a side hustle the basis inn
15:00
Speaker 1: Ray Price's band. In each town on the tour, the
15:03
Speaker 1: money went right through him. Willy wasn't the leader of
15:06
Speaker 1: the group, but he sure acted like it. He rented
15:09
Speaker 1: the fanciest hotel suites with his small fortune, and he
15:12
Speaker 1: drank the rest. But the cash was never really gone.
15:16
Speaker 1: Just when he thought the money had dried up, there'd
15:18
Speaker 1: be a new check to cash, and now that he
15:20
Speaker 1: was a real Nashville songwriter. Though, Willy wanted to be
15:23
Speaker 1: more and not just the bass playing sideman. He wanted
15:27
Speaker 1: to sing stand center stage. He wanted to be more
15:30
Speaker 1: than a tiny name written under a song title on
15:32
Speaker 1: the label of a record. He wanted to see his
15:35
Speaker 1: face on the cover of a record's sleeve. He wanted
15:37
Speaker 1: to be a best selling artist, and Liberty Records saw
15:41
Speaker 1: Willy's potential to become one the La label home. Not
15:44
Speaker 1: only did the Ventures Jackie de Shanton and the Chipmunks,
15:47
Speaker 1: but also Bob Willis and Tex Williams signed Willy to
15:50
Speaker 1: a record deal in nineteen sixty one. At Liberty, Willie
15:54
Speaker 1: discovered firsthand how he had to fight for artistic integrity.
15:57
Speaker 1: Liberty wanted him to go with the flow. Flow was
16:00
Speaker 1: the Nashville sound country politan. They called it saccharine strings
16:05
Speaker 1: and backup singers. To Willie, it sounded overproduced. Willie wanted
16:10
Speaker 1: zero frills and the songs were simple, and so they
16:13
Speaker 1: should sound simple. Willie didn't bristle at all of Liberty's ideas,
16:17
Speaker 1: though in fact there was one he accepted without hesitation,
16:21
Speaker 1: a duet with fellow country singer Shirley Cawley. Shirley was
16:25
Speaker 1: the real deal, played with Bob will as a Leti
16:27
Speaker 1: Frizelle Pretty as Hell. Also. Willi and Shirley's duet Willingly
16:32
Speaker 1: didn't make Willie a star, but it made the two
16:35
Speaker 1: singers an item. It was love at first sight, and
16:38
Speaker 1: just because Shirley was also married, didn't stop her from
16:41
Speaker 1: running up a two thousand dollars tab on her husband's
16:43
Speaker 1: AMEX card while running around with Willie. Willie and Shirley
16:47
Speaker 1: married a few years later, in nineteen sixty three, before
16:50
Speaker 1: Willie's divorce to Martha was final. They tied the knot
16:53
Speaker 1: when they finished playing a residency at the Golden Nugget
16:56
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas, six forty minute shows between eight pm
17:00
Speaker 1: two am every night, night after night. It was a slog.
17:05
Speaker 1: When two am rolled around. You expected to be dead tuckered,
17:08
Speaker 1: but you were wired. You couldn't sleep green meanies, though
17:12
Speaker 1: they did the trick placid iose sleeping pills make you
17:15
Speaker 1: feel like you just destroyed the world, or rather that
17:18
Speaker 1: the world had just destroyed you. But because Willie had
17:22
Speaker 1: fallen in love again and married again didn't mean he
17:24
Speaker 1: was done chasing other women. Quite the contrary. He loved women.
17:28
Speaker 1: He loved their company, how they smelled, and the way
17:31
Speaker 1: they smiled, and the things they said. From Vegas to
17:34
Speaker 1: Fort Worth and North Hollywood to Fresno, Oklahoma City, to
17:37
Speaker 1: Tulsa to Dallas and everywhere in between, Willy Tor and
17:40
Speaker 1: Willie flirted. What Shirley didn't know wouldn't hurt her. In Phoenix.
17:44
Speaker 1: At JD's nightclub, he made sure to talk up one
17:47
Speaker 1: particularly fine lo good lady. Willie turned on the charm
17:50
Speaker 1: between sets. She blushed. She was flattered. Her husband, on
17:54
Speaker 1: the other hand, not so much. He followed Willie out
17:58
Speaker 1: of the parking lot after the show. He walked to
18:00
Speaker 1: his vehicle and grabbed a carjack from the trunk, and
18:03
Speaker 1: then he walked right up to Willie Nelson just look
18:06
Speaker 1: at him, all fucking full of himself in his classy suit,
18:09
Speaker 1: a nice white shirt and tie. Some big time Nashville pricked,
18:12
Speaker 1: thinking he was better than the good people in Phoenix
18:15
Speaker 1: and that he could just do what he wanted with
18:16
Speaker 1: their women. Cock the goddamn walk. This was one husband
18:20
Speaker 1: who wasn't gonna take it lying down. He didn't even
18:23
Speaker 1: have to say anything. Willie knew the guy was in
18:25
Speaker 1: enraged cuckold. He took one swing in the carjack bit
18:28
Speaker 1: into Willy's head. The blood gushed, ruined his goddamn suit,
18:32
Speaker 1: and Willy collapsed at the pavement. His head pounded, the
18:36
Speaker 1: blood didn't stop. He was rushed to the hospital and
18:38
Speaker 1: he nearly died. Still, he wasn't about to stop, not
18:43
Speaker 1: stop touring, not stop drinking, not stop smoking, and not
18:47
Speaker 1: stop fucking with someone else's wife. It was what you
18:50
Speaker 1: did as a stargling country star on the road. Well,
18:53
Speaker 1: it was what Willy Nelson did anyway, a lot harder
18:55
Speaker 1: than it looked. Every time he made eyes in another woman,
18:58
Speaker 1: you put yourself in danger and looked a lot, which
19:01
Speaker 1: meant the danger was always looking around every corner and
19:03
Speaker 1: in every parking lot. And when you weren't dodging jealous husbands,
19:07
Speaker 1: you were shaking down club owners to get the money
19:09
Speaker 1: you were rowed. And the whole goddamn circuit coast to
19:12
Speaker 1: coast was staffed by chiefs, skate rattlesnakes. For every night
19:15
Speaker 1: that you got paid, but you were promised you played
19:17
Speaker 1: three more nights where you got stiffed. When Willie needed protection,
19:21
Speaker 1: someone who had his back, someone who wasn't afraid to
19:24
Speaker 1: get rough on the going got tough, someone who wouldn't
19:27
Speaker 1: think twice about getting a little crazy. We'll be right
19:35
Speaker 1: back after this. We're we're where nineteen seventy Ridge, Top, Tennessee.
19:46
Speaker 1: Willie Nelson's knuckles stung like hell. His son in law,
19:51
Speaker 1: Steve lay in a crumpled ball at his feet. Steve
19:54
Speaker 1: was holding his face in his hands. Don't hit me again, Willie,
19:58
Speaker 1: Steve yelled, don't hit me, Willie. I got anxiety. That
20:02
Speaker 1: was rich anxiety. The guy beats his wife, Willie's seventeen
20:07
Speaker 1: year old daughter, black and blue and bloody, and he's
20:10
Speaker 1: the one with anxiety. Willie told Steve that if he
20:14
Speaker 1: ever laid another hand on his daughter, he would kill him,
20:17
Speaker 1: and then he walked out the front door and drove
20:19
Speaker 1: back up the road to his house. Seven years earlier,
20:23
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty three, Willie and his wife Shirley bought
20:27
Speaker 1: a red brick ranch style home on seventeen acres of
20:30
Speaker 1: land east of Nashville. It was close enough to Willy's
20:33
Speaker 1: day job on music Row, the far enough away to
20:36
Speaker 1: provide a much needed respite from the trials of life
20:38
Speaker 1: as a professional musician. They worked the land when they
20:41
Speaker 1: weren't working the road. They raised hogs, chicken, ski stucks, horses, cattle,
20:47
Speaker 1: and the simplicity of life on a farm lessened the
20:49
Speaker 1: blow when Liberty dropped Willy after two lackluster albums, or
20:53
Speaker 1: when RCA picked him up and scratched their heads at
20:56
Speaker 1: what to do with them. Still, the songwriting checks kept
21:00
Speaker 1: pouring in. Eventually Willie had enough money to buy a
21:03
Speaker 1: couple hundred more acres, and the ranch soon became a
21:06
Speaker 1: family affair. Willie's sister Bobby moved in with her three boys,
21:11
Speaker 1: Willie's mother Merrell and her husband, then Willy's father, Ira
21:14
Speaker 1: and his wife. One by one, Willie's kids from his
21:17
Speaker 1: marriage to Martha moved onto the farm, and eventually even
21:20
Speaker 1: Martha did too. Up the road with their daughter Lana
21:23
Speaker 1: and Lana's husband, Steve. The mailbox at the top of
21:27
Speaker 1: the road read Willie Nelson and many others. Some called
21:31
Speaker 1: it Nashville's first hippie commune. But all wasn't quiet on
21:35
Speaker 1: the Western front. First, in nineteen sixty nine, Shirley, like
21:40
Speaker 1: Martha before or, felt the sharp, unexpected sting of betrayal
21:44
Speaker 1: when one of Willie's many affairs came to light. But
21:47
Speaker 1: this was more than just another affair. A hospital bill
21:50
Speaker 1: arrived in the mail for the birth of a baby
21:52
Speaker 1: girl named Paula Nelson. Sleeping around on the side was
21:56
Speaker 1: one thing, but a baby. Shirley was out, the baby's mother,
22:00
Speaker 1: Connie was in, and then Lanna showed up at the
22:04
Speaker 1: house with a black eye and bloody nose. Paul English,
22:07
Speaker 1: Willy's drummer, suggested that the knuckle sandwich Willie had provided
22:11
Speaker 1: to Lana's husband was not enough. They had to do
22:14
Speaker 1: something else, something that would send a message, really teach
22:18
Speaker 1: that low life piece of shit a lesson. They should
22:20
Speaker 1: break the guy's legs. Everyone in Willie's house laughed, everyone
22:25
Speaker 1: except Willie. He knew Paul wasn't kidding. Paul was dead serious.
22:30
Speaker 1: And this is what Paul did. Collected debts, and when
22:33
Speaker 1: debts couldn't be collected, he settled them. Paul English had
22:38
Speaker 1: a history, the kind of history you want a guy
22:41
Speaker 1: to have who's paid to watch your back. Literally, because
22:44
Speaker 1: Paul wasn't just Willy's drummer. Paul was Willy's muscle. Paul's
22:48
Speaker 1: childhood was full of petty theft, being ease, delinquency. He
22:52
Speaker 1: claimed to have been arrested more than a hundred times
22:54
Speaker 1: over the course of his life, including three bus in
22:56
Speaker 1: one day. At seventeen years old, he did nine months
23:00
Speaker 1: for burglary, even though like most people on the inside,
23:03
Speaker 1: you know he was actually innocent of that one. Paul
23:06
Speaker 1: had connections all over He knew the guys who would
23:09
Speaker 1: be the most helpful, the guys you wanted to avoid too.
23:12
Speaker 1: He knew the dealers with the best weed. Which men
23:14
Speaker 1: Paul had the best weed. He kept sawed off shotguns
23:17
Speaker 1: and assault rifles in the piano. One of his most
23:20
Speaker 1: prized possessions was a silver forty five with a gold trigger.
23:24
Speaker 1: On one side of the barrel was a filigree depicting
23:26
Speaker 1: Paul engaged in an energy and the other side of
23:29
Speaker 1: the barrel displayed Paul going down on a woman. When
23:32
Speaker 1: you pointed it at someone, all they saw was welcome
23:35
Speaker 1: to Hell written over the barrel. Sometimes Paul used the guns,
23:39
Speaker 1: and sometimes he didn't. He had many ways of making
23:42
Speaker 1: motherfuckers pay. Hey, he's the deadbeat club owner in New
23:45
Speaker 1: Mexico who didn't pay Willie Nelson when he was owed.
23:48
Speaker 1: That's your thunderbird on the business end of that forklift
23:50
Speaker 1: over there, ten feet in the air. Paul English has
23:53
Speaker 1: the keys to your car and the forklift. And he's
23:56
Speaker 1: also the guy who wrote you this little note, the
23:58
Speaker 1: one that says comes guess what the deadbeat club owner
24:02
Speaker 1: and New Mexico did. He went to see Paul and
24:05
Speaker 1: then he paid him. Or maybe you're one of the
24:08
Speaker 1: couple jerkofs who lost a bet playing a game of
24:10
Speaker 1: pool with Doyle, Willy's stepbrother and tour bus driver. He
24:13
Speaker 1: didn't cough up the money. It's just a quarter, you say,
24:16
Speaker 1: the fucking smart ass. Paul starts beating on your friend
24:18
Speaker 1: to make a point. A BET's a bet, fucko. So
24:21
Speaker 1: you wrap that pool cube around Paul's throat and pull tight.
24:24
Speaker 1: Then that's when Paul pulls the twenty two out of
24:26
Speaker 1: his pocket and sticks it straight up your right nostril.
24:28
Speaker 1: You think the steel caressing your nose hairs is uncomfortable,
24:31
Speaker 1: just wait until he pulls the trigger haas you want
24:34
Speaker 1: to see what it's like picking up pieces of your
24:35
Speaker 1: fucking nose a felt table, You fucking redneck. Didn't matter
24:38
Speaker 1: if the bet was a quarter or a quarter million dollars.
24:41
Speaker 1: It's the principle of the thing you fuck with Willie
24:43
Speaker 1: Nelson or remember Willie Nelson's extended family, then you're regretting.
24:48
Speaker 1: That was the thinking back at Ridgetop when Paul English
24:50
Speaker 1: was gun hoe or break the legs of Lama's abusive husband, Steve.
24:54
Speaker 1: They didn't have much time to mull over the plan.
24:56
Speaker 1: An engine rumbled in the distance, and it was getting
24:59
Speaker 1: closer louder. It was right outside the house now A
25:03
Speaker 1: gunshot rang out a rifle, and then another, and a third.
25:06
Speaker 1: Willi grabbed his shotgun and Paul found his end. One
25:09
Speaker 1: rifle the high tailed that outside. Connie hit the deck
25:12
Speaker 1: inside the house. She made the kids do the same.
25:15
Speaker 1: Lana and Martha just come inside through the back door.
25:18
Speaker 1: Now they were on the floor too. The truck drove
25:20
Speaker 1: past the house, but it started to circle back. As
25:23
Speaker 1: it came around for a second pass. Willy jumped up
25:26
Speaker 1: from the yard with his shotgun and he looked at
25:28
Speaker 1: the truck. Steve and his brothers, armed with rifles, took
25:32
Speaker 1: aim at the house again. A bullet raised Willy's head. Undeterred,
25:36
Speaker 1: Willi raised the shotgun and pulled the truck. Paul English
25:39
Speaker 1: appeared at the side of the house and one in
25:41
Speaker 1: his hand, locked and loaded. He aimed underneath the truck
25:44
Speaker 1: and fired. The bullets peppered the back bumper. Air hissed
25:48
Speaker 1: from a tire that had been shot out, and the
25:49
Speaker 1: truck receded into the distance, and then with a jerk,
25:53
Speaker 1: it turned around and had it back for more wobbling
25:57
Speaker 1: on three good tires, fucking balls on this asshole. Paul
26:01
Speaker 1: tossed Willie the m one and pulled a snubnose thirty
26:03
Speaker 1: eight from his sock. They both took game and began
26:06
Speaker 1: to fire again. And then the brake spoiled and the
26:09
Speaker 1: truck came to a stop. William Paul paused, Steve came
26:13
Speaker 1: out hands in the air truce. The next day, Steve
26:19
Speaker 1: returned to Willie's house, though this time he came in
26:22
Speaker 1: peace and in shame. He told Willie he would never
26:25
Speaker 1: hit his daughter again. Paul, for one, said he was
26:28
Speaker 1: glad that Steve didn't stop his truck when they shot
26:30
Speaker 1: out his tire. Otherwise I would have had to aim
26:33
Speaker 1: to kill rather than shoot to miss, he said. Once again,
26:37
Speaker 1: Everyone in the house laughed, but not Paul. Paul liked
26:40
Speaker 1: jokes as much as the next guy, but when it
26:42
Speaker 1: came to the safety of family, and he, like so
26:44
Speaker 1: many others at Richetop and beyond, considered himself a lifelong
26:47
Speaker 1: member of Willie Nelson's family, there was nothing funny about
26:50
Speaker 1: that at all. The preacher drifted from town to town.
26:57
Speaker 1: He wrote his jet black stallion and led his dead
26:59
Speaker 1: wife horse by the reins. His reputation preceded him. He
27:04
Speaker 1: was the stranger who quenched his thirst for revenge by
27:07
Speaker 1: gunning down his wife and her lover. But now he
27:09
Speaker 1: was driven by something else, self loathing, despair. He hadn't
27:14
Speaker 1: heard from God in days. He'd been abandoned. Some called
27:18
Speaker 1: him Preacher, others called him the stranger. Most people didn't
27:22
Speaker 1: say more than two words to him, and they minded
27:24
Speaker 1: their own business looked the other way. They did this
27:28
Speaker 1: when he arrived at the next town on his journey,
27:30
Speaker 1: all except one. The Preacher was hitching his stallion to
27:34
Speaker 1: a post outside a saloon when a woman approached him.
27:37
Speaker 1: She was young, pretty. She made small talk. The preacher
27:41
Speaker 1: was rusty, but he feigned a smile and responded with
27:43
Speaker 1: a few words. She asked if she could pet the horse,
27:46
Speaker 1: and he obliged. The setting sun caught his eye. He
27:49
Speaker 1: squinted for a fleeting moment. The woman looked like his
27:52
Speaker 1: dead wife. He knew it was just his eyes and
27:55
Speaker 1: the sun playing tricks on him, but he allowed himself
27:58
Speaker 1: to be tricked. The tense muscles throughout his body began
28:01
Speaker 1: to relax, and then the woman grabbed the horse's reins.
28:05
Speaker 1: She pulled the horse towards her, the preacher's dead wife's horse.
28:09
Speaker 1: This woman intended to make that horse hers. The preacher
28:13
Speaker 1: couldn't let that happen. He reached for his shotgun in
28:16
Speaker 1: the leather pouch of his stallion's saddle and swung the
28:19
Speaker 1: barrel around. The woman had managed to climb onto the
28:21
Speaker 1: horse's back. She was getting ready to ride off into
28:24
Speaker 1: the sunset. She wasn't fast enough. The preacher aimed, The
28:28
Speaker 1: shotgun fired, and the woman fell lifeless from the horse,
28:32
Speaker 1: face down in the dirt. The preacher thought back to
28:35
Speaker 1: the man he was just days ago, when his wife
28:38
Speaker 1: was still alive. He didn't yet to discover the betrayal
28:41
Speaker 1: was an unwelcome guest in his home. He thought about
28:44
Speaker 1: that man, but he didn't recognize him, and he would
28:47
Speaker 1: never be that man again. December twenty third, nineteen seventy,
29:11
Speaker 1: Willie Nelson was at a Christmas party in Nashville and
29:13
Speaker 1: the phone rang behind the bar. The bartender answered. He
29:17
Speaker 1: motioned Willie over. It was for him, one of his
29:20
Speaker 1: nephews back home on the farm in Ridgetop. His voice
29:24
Speaker 1: was breathless. Uncle Willy, he yelled you gotta get up here.
29:27
Speaker 1: Your house is on fire. This house is melting. It
29:31
Speaker 1: took Willy twenty five minutes to haul ass from Nashville
29:34
Speaker 1: back to Ridgetop, where he found his house was indeed melting.
29:38
Speaker 1: At first, he thought of his family. Had they made
29:40
Speaker 1: it out safely? Yes, they were all here, all outside,
29:43
Speaker 1: each one accounted for. And then he thought about the
29:45
Speaker 1: things besides his loved ones that he couldn't lose. Two
29:48
Speaker 1: very specific things inside the house that he had to save.
29:53
Speaker 1: The firefighters told him not to go inside. It was
29:56
Speaker 1: too dangerous and the entire place was engulfed in flames.
30:00
Speaker 1: Your family is safe, they told him, everything else is
30:02
Speaker 1: just stuff. Willy didn't listen. He ran inside the burning home,
30:07
Speaker 1: flames looking at his face. Willy's family stood outside, fearing
30:11
Speaker 1: the worst, fearing that Willy had walked himself into an
30:14
Speaker 1: early grave. Seconds felt like hours, and then Willie emerged
30:18
Speaker 1: from the fire and the smoke, coughing and wheezing, grateful
30:21
Speaker 1: to be alive. In one hand, he held a plastic
30:25
Speaker 1: bag with two pounds of grade A Columbian grass. Thanks
30:29
Speaker 1: to Paul English's connections, Willy was smoking more grass than
30:32
Speaker 1: he ever had before. But the real reason he wanted
30:35
Speaker 1: to grab the weed was so the firefighters wouldn't find
30:37
Speaker 1: it and turn it into the authorities. Besides, he was
30:41
Speaker 1: already going inside to save the thing that was in
30:43
Speaker 1: his other hand. Trigger Trigger was Willie Nelson's guitar, named
30:49
Speaker 1: after will Rogers's horse. Trigger was a Martin n twenty
30:53
Speaker 1: nine long stringed acoustic guitar made out of Brazilian rosewood
30:56
Speaker 1: that Willie bought the previous year for seven hundred and
30:58
Speaker 1: fifty dollars. A nylon string guitar was an odd choice
31:02
Speaker 1: for anyone not playing classical music, but the tone fit
31:06
Speaker 1: Willy to a tee. It got him closer to the
31:09
Speaker 1: tone of his favorite guitarist of all time, Jango Reinhardt.
31:13
Speaker 1: As Willie himself put it, it's just got a good sound.
31:16
Speaker 1: It was simple, just like Willie's songs, just like the
31:20
Speaker 1: cause of the blaze, faulty wiring in the basement rigged
31:24
Speaker 1: up by Willy's stepfather. Little else survived the fire. Willie
31:28
Speaker 1: was thirty seven years old. The homestead he had cultivated
31:32
Speaker 1: for seven years was gone. He had a wife and
31:34
Speaker 1: four kids to support, plus two ex wives and the
31:38
Speaker 1: royalty checks weren't as big as they once were. He
31:40
Speaker 1: was still grinding it out in dive bars, despite nine
31:44
Speaker 1: albums under his belt for RCA his career as a
31:46
Speaker 1: country artist, said Saul, something had to give, something had
31:50
Speaker 1: to change. They say you can't go home again, and
31:53
Speaker 1: they're only half right, because Willie Nelson did decide to
31:57
Speaker 1: go back to Texas, but not the Texas of his youth.
32:00
Speaker 1: This time. It was two hours south of Willy's hometown
32:03
Speaker 1: of Abbott, a place where the rent was cheap and
32:06
Speaker 1: so were the good times. Ninety nine cents for a
32:09
Speaker 1: six pack of Texas Pride Extra Light locker, ten bucks
32:13
Speaker 1: for announce to kill a weed, and Willie Nelson was
32:15
Speaker 1: on the road again, to a place where he could
32:17
Speaker 1: grow his short hair long and ditch the clean shaven
32:20
Speaker 1: face for a big old beard. Trade in the suit
32:23
Speaker 1: and tie for a T shirt and blue jeans, a
32:26
Speaker 1: red bandana to tie around your head, a place where
32:29
Speaker 1: Willy Nelson could be himself. Just who was that? It
32:34
Speaker 1: was shotgun Willie, a non conforming badass ready to take
32:38
Speaker 1: up arms and defend his family. It was a twice
32:41
Speaker 1: divorced ladies man working through the faces and stages and
32:44
Speaker 1: cycles and circles of his life. It was a redheaded
32:48
Speaker 1: stranger who wandered from town to town. But soon Willie
32:52
Speaker 1: Nelson would be a stranger to no one. Soon the
32:55
Speaker 1: whole world would know him by name, by his voice,
32:59
Speaker 1: by the sound of his tar trigger. Soon he would
33:02
Speaker 1: be famous the world over when he's sang the ballad
33:05
Speaker 1: of that revenge seeking preacher who murdered his own wife,
33:08
Speaker 1: an entire album that would cross country music over to
33:11
Speaker 1: the pop mainstream. But first Willie Nelson how to get
33:16
Speaker 1: himself to Austin, Texas. I'm Jake Brennan in this episode
33:23
Speaker 1: of Disgraceland is to be continued. Disgraceland was created by
33:42
Speaker 1: Yours Truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis.
33:45
Speaker 1: Credits for this episode can be found on the show
33:47
Speaker 1: notes page at disgracelandpod dot com. If you're listening as
33:51
Speaker 1: a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show.
33:55
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33:57
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34:05
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34:31
Speaker 1: Rock a Roller, he Thednlan