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PREVIEW: Willie Nelson
by Rachel Broady23/ 3/2005
MOST people laugh and point if you admit to liking country and
western music and don't take kindly to being reminded that many
cooler artists have covered the occasional spit and sawdust
track.
Maybe it's all those line dancing folk from the suburbs, or the
image of bands playing behind chicken wire at the Grand Ole Opry,
or the misery that a decent C&W lyric evokes, but as a musical
form it gets a bad rap.
And yet rap is far worse!
Anyway, there should be celebrations that Willie Nelson is dragging
his Texan behind to Manchester and bringing us his music.
His song Crazy, made famous by Patsy Cline, deserves the cost of
his flight alone.
More familiar to most will be the cover version of You Were Always
On My Mind, which made the number one in 1987 thanks to the Pet
Shop Boys, following of course Presley's 1971 version.
Nelson lived the sort of rock and roll lifestyle the likes Green
Day could only pretend to lead and is a vital icon in country music
but you can detect a smirk should you tell a date that you
occasionally listen to him. I would suggest you don't make that
mistake too often.
Born in 1933, he was raised on and worked in the cotton fields
with, he says, a lot of African-Americans listening to music
constantly.
He then released his first single in 1957.
He went on to write many country classics, Funny How Time Slips
Away, Rainy Day Blues, Wake Me When It's Over and Hello Walls among
them.
The seventies saw him trying his hand at gospel, jazz, movie
soundtracks and Christmas albums (the latter is a must for any
country and western musician, isn't it?).
And while longhaired hippy meets traditional musician phase was
considered hideous at the time it's now thought of more
fondly.
But the 80s saw him fighting with the American tax office and our
country hero fell on harder times while enjoying the Pet Shop Boys
cover and Julio Inglesias covering To All The Girls I've Loved
Before (even if we didn't).
Admittedly his lifestyle is now more Bruce Forsyth than Bruce
Springsteen but he is 67 and enjoys playing golf at his own range
by his Austin home in Texas.
But he will bring a dignified, granddaddy wisdom with him to the
Apollo.
Cheer him on, folks.
How can you not admire a man who sings Mammas Don't Let Your Babies
Grow Up To Be Cowboys?
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