He’s credited with more than 200 records and has collaborated with acts diverse as Johnny Cash, Julio Iglesias, Bob Dylan, Waylon Jennings, Sinead O’Connor, Paul Simon, Toby Keith, Kris Kristofferson, Bonnie Raitt, Ryan Adams, Merle Haggard, Kenny Chesney, Dave Matthews, Randy Newman and Wynton Marsalis. His songs have been covered by Patsy Cline, Ray Price, Roy Orbison, Billy Walker, Claude Gray …  and Charles Manson.

Willie Nelson is a national treasure with a career that spans more than five decades and includes innumerable contributions to country and popular music.
 

Willie Nelson

Nelson was born in 1933 in Abbott, Texas, and he began writing songs in elementary school and played in bands as a teenager. By the mid ’50s, Nelson was working as a country disk jockey in Fort Worth while recording independently and playing nightclubs. He sold some of his original compositions, including “Family Bible,” which became a hit for Gray in 1960.

Encouraged by his early success, Nelson moved to Nashville, where record labels were reluctant to sign him. He received a publishing contract with Pamper Music, where some of his songs became huge hits for other performers, including Price, Orbison and Cline, who turned in an immortal rendering of “Crazy.”

In 1962, Nelson scored his first two Top 10 hits as a recording artist for Liberty Records, but breakthrough success continued to elude him. In 1965, he signed with RCA Records and joined the Grand Ole Opry. After a few more minor hits, Nelson grew disillusioned with Nashville and the direction country music was taking and moved back to Texas in 1972.

Nelson signed with Atlantic Records and released Shotgun Willie to critical acclaim in 1973. The concept album Phases and Stages followed in 1974 and included the hit “Bloody Mary Morning.”

The breakthrough Nelson was seeking for the better part of two decades finally came in 1975 when he parted ways with Atlantic Records and signed with Columbia Records, which gave him creative control over his work.

His Columbia debut — the sparse, conceptual Red Headed Stranger — became one of country music’s most unlikely hits and delivered Nelson his first No. 1 single as a singer with his cover of Fred Rose’s “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.” Nelson’s knack for Nashville nonconformity was mirrored by the likes of Jennings, Kristofferson, Haggard, Cash and others, prompting journalist Hazel Smith to coin the trend “Outlaw Music.”

In 1978, Nelson released two more platinum albums. Waylon & Willie was a collaboration with Jennings that included a cover of Ed Bruce’s “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.” Meanwhile, Stardust was a collection of pop standards including “Georgia on My Mind,” “All of Me” and “Someone to Watch Over Me.”

Nelson’s acting career began in 1979. “On the Road Again,” from the film Honeysuckle Rose, became one of Nelson’s most popular hits, as did the 1982 crossover “Always On My Mind” and the 1984 duet with Latin pop star Iglesias, “To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before.”

In 1990, Nelson received a bill from the IRS for $16.7 million in back taxes, which spurred the release of the double album The IRS Tapes: Who’ll Buy My Memories. His debt was cleared by 1993, and Nelson was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame that same year.

In February of this year, Nelson andv Asleep at the Wheel collaborated on Willie & The Wheel, a collection of classic Western swing songs hand-picked by the late Jerry Wexler. The following month, Naked Willie, a 17-song collection of recordings done between 1966 and 1970, was released. Lost Highway dropped on Aug. 11, and his Blue Note debut, American Classic, followed on Aug. 25.

American Classic finds Nelson returning to the formula that made Stardust one of his best-selling records. Taking another crack at the American Songbook, Nelson collaborates with Dina Krall and Norah Jones on standards such as “Fly Me to the Moon,” “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” and, fittingly, a reinterpretation of “Always on My Mind.” 


The Koger Center is at 1051 Greene St. Doors open at 7:30 p.m., and admission ranges from $45 to $58. Call 251-2222 or visit koger.sc.edu for more information.