And Then I Wrote's title reflects the fact that Nelson was a hit songwriter long before he was a solo star. And as a showcase of songwriting talent, the album is both an unheralded country classic and an excellent precursor to more expansive and well-known Nelson releases like Red Headed Stranger. These songs are stark expressions of heartbreak. “If you can't say you love me, say you hate me,” Nelson sings on “Undo the Right”, desperate to feel something. “Three Days” is darkly comic: “Three days I hate to be alive: today, yesterday and tomorrow.” “The Part Where I Cry” and “Where My House Lives” are brilliantly coded expressions of grief. In the former, Nelson describes his life as a movie (or “picture”) and sells it to the listener-turned-viewer (“I was great in the part where she found someone new”). “Where My House Lives” is a heartbreaking closer: “Here's where my house lives… I never go there / ‘Cause it holds too many memories” Nelson tells the listener, removing himself from the picture of domestic happiness and accepting the role of lonesome cowboy-drifter that would come to define his future. Nelson also continued to collaborate with a range of recording artists. In 2008, he performed live in Amsterdam with rap icon Snoop Dogg, and the duo went on to work together on the video for "My Medicine." In 2009, Nelson teamed up with music group Asleep at the Wheel to release the country swing album Willie and the Wheel, and that same year he released Naked Willie, which included new mixes of his early recordings. In 2010, Nelson released the critically acclaimed Country Music, a collaboration with producer T Bone Burnett. Around this time, Nelson’s collaborative endeavors found fertile ground as well. Along with Jennings, Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser, he contributed to the compilation Wanted! The Outlaws (1976), which also achieved both critical and commercial success. Grammys for 'Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up' and 'Georgia on My Mind' Nelson continued to tour heavily, often playing as many as 150 to 200 dates a year, while maintaining his prolific songwriting output. Among the highlights from this period are The Great Divide (2002) and Countryman (2005), which incorporated elements of reggae.

Erlewine, Michael (1997). All Music Guide to Country: The Experts' Guide to the Best Recordings in Country Music. Miller Freeman. ISBN 978-0-87930-475-1. In 2008, Nelson released Moment of Forever, which garnered much critical praise. He also scored a Grammy that same year for the single "Lost Highway," a duet performed with Ray Price, whose recording of “Night Life” nearly a half-century before had been one of Nelson’s earliest successes. Collaborations: Snoop Dogg, Merle Haggard, Sheryl Crow and More Of his longtime love affair with marijuana, Nelson writes in It’s a Long Story that “just as I’ve always loved robust coffee beans and the strong buzz produced by the brew, I felt the same way about cannabis. It pushed me in the right direction. It pushed me in a positive direction. It kept my head in my music. It kept my head filled with poetry.” Adding to his resume of successful collaborations, the following year Nelson joined with Johnny Cash, Jennings and Kristofferson to form the country supergroup the Highwaymen. “You wouldn’t think that our four uneven voices would blend. But they did. They fit together like a jigsaw puzzle,” Nelson writes of the group in It’s a Long Story.

After signing a new record deal with Legacy Recordings, in 2012 Nelson released the album Heroes, which featured appearances by Merle Haggard, Snoop, Kristofferson and Sheryl Crow, among others. It reached No. 4 country and No. 18 pop, his highest-charting effort since “Always on My Mind.” That same year, the Country Music Association honored Nelson with an all-star tribute at the CMAs in Nashville. After receiving the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song by the Library of Congress in 2015, Nelson released Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin (2016), a tribute to the iconic songs of George and Ira Gershwin and featuring duets with artists such as Crow and Cyndi Lauper.

In 1947 Nelson joined the gospel group Bud Fletcher and the Texans, which already featured Bobbie on piano. He continued to attend school and lettered in numerous sports. The band played the local club circuit for the next few years and Bobbie and Bud Fletcher married. It was during this time Nelson first appeared on local radio. Air Force By 1970 Nelson had set up home in Ridgetop, Tennessee, and that year his house burned down. During the blaze Nelson describes running inside and grabbing two guitar cases. “One contained [his guitar] Trigger and the other two pounds of primo Columbian pot,” he writes in It’s a Long Story. And I do mean that, it'll be fascinating to see how the biggest name in the history of Texas music evolved throughout his 61 year career. Not enough people care about Nelson's contributions to music (which is entirely due to his genre, coastal yuppies aren't paying attention I can confirm that much for you) and I think most just see him as a gentle sage who smokes a lot of pot. But take a good gander at his musical accomplishments--he's the man who made country music into a legit artform, like Pet Sounds did to pop music, Public Enemy to hip hop, and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band to the album. Country music is easily separated by two eras in my opinion, before Red Headed Stranger and after, and that's not even discussing Phases and Stages which is the (debatably) better but not as iconic album that preceded it that similarly attempted the country concept album. Nelson was born on April 29, 1933, in Abbott, Texas. The son of Myrle and Ira D. Nelson, Willie and his older sister, Bobbie, were raised by their paternal grandparents during the Great Depression.Kosser, Michael (2006). How Nashville Became Music City, U.s.a.: 50 Years of Music Row. Hal Leonard Corporation. ISBN 9780634098062. However, despite these successes, Nelson’s own recordings fell on deaf ears during this period. He did not fit the traditional Nashville country music mold, and whenever producers tried to make him fit they only succeeded in stripping away the qualities that helped make him unique, such as his unusual manner of phrasing. However, with 1975’s Red-Headed Stranger, Nelson had his real first taste of success. Not only did the album reach No. 1 on the country charts, but it also crossed over to the pop Top 40. Among the highlights from the recording is the Fred Rose–penned number “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” which gave Nelson his first No. 1 country hit and earned him his first Grammy Award for best country vocal performance.